

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 




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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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The Professor's Letters 



BV ^ 

THEOPHILUS PARSONS 



189 



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BOSTON 

ROBERTS BROTHERS 

1891 



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Copyright, 1891, 
By Roberts Brothers. 



1 MhT £> 



25tttbersitu i^rrss: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



PREFACE 

A few words only are needed to introduce this 
little book. If it has any quality of helpfulness, it 
will speak for itself better than any preface could 
do, and if it is found to be without that essential 
quality, it would be vain to bolster it with words. 
The book is rightly entitled "The Professor's 
Letters," but as there is a little work in them by 
another hand, it is right that it should be acknowl- 
edged. The letters were written many years ago to 
a young girl, solely for her benefit and instruction, 
and without any thought of publication. But after 
a time, the recipient of the letters thought they con- 
tained so many wise and useful thoughts that it 
seemed selfish not to share them with others, and 
she asked Professor Parsons if extracts from them 
could not be published. To this he gave his con- 
sent with a condition which at first seemed to spoil 
the plan. He said that his young friend must pre- 
pare them for publication herself, re-writing and 
adding whatever thoughts were suggested during 
this work. 



IV PREFACE 

All who knew Professor Parsons well, are aware 
of his constant kindness and zeal in carrying on 
this sort of education ; that is, drawing out all that 
was possible from the young people about him, by 
leading them to give expression to their faintly 
struggling thoughts. People were not inclined to 
disobey him ; they would generally try to do what 
was suggested, and so it was in this case. The let- 
ters, therefore, are still in substance the Professor's 
letters, wearing only a slightly different garment 
from the original ones, and with the addition of 
a few pages which though not written by the Pro- 
fessor, were certainly inspired by him. 



The Professor's Letters 



I. 



IT seemed to me when I last saw you, my dear 
friend, that I could read in your eyes even 
before you told me with your lips, that you were at 
last ready to welcome gladly the truths which I so 
gladly share' with you. Yes, now I can believe that 
our Father has made you ready. Your heart was 
like a rich meadow at which I often gaze from my 
window. Thick emerald grass and wild daisies grew 
there already ; but the owner meant to make it into 
a garden ; and last spring it was all ploughed up, 
and in that way prepared for the reception of the 
young trees and plants from which another year we 
may have sweet blossoms. I felt a momentary pang 
when the ploughshare began cutting long ridges in 
the soft green carpet which I loved, and which had 
often served to soothe my wearied eyes. At first it 
seemed almost cruel to turn the fresh grass under- 



2 RELIEF FROM PRESENT TROUBLE 

neath to die, till I remembered that its very death 
would help the new plant to a richer life. The sim- 
ile which I have used is a trite one, but none the 
less apt, and you, who have now felt the effect of 
this preparation in your own heart, you at least will 
not find fault with it. 

When I was with you a week ago we had no op- 
portunity for much talk together, but you told me 
how strong was your desire to learn more of the 
doctrines of our Church, and I will endeavor to tell 
you what I can by letters, since I may not come 

again to for a long time, and I could hardly 

expect you to come where I am. 

I speak of doctrines ; yet it is not my purpose to 
unfold them to you in any regular system ; but rather 
to suggest for your own earnest thinking whatever 
you may seem to need at any particular time. And 
this need I shall endeavor to find out from your 
letters. 

Permit me to recur for a moment to the time, now 
long ago, when we first began to speak of these 
things. Like many another you hungered and 
thirsted for happiness ; for relief in some shape 
from the troubles which assailed you from your un- 
congenial surroundings ; for a removal of the pres- 
sure which weighed upon you, you knew not why. 
I remember you could not enjoy the delicious out- 
pouring of song that interrupted our talk one day in 



WHAT TRUE HAPPINESS IS 



the woods, because the first thought that came was, 
" Why cannot I be as happy as that bird ? Every 
note which he utters seems pure joy, and I, a human 
being with an organization so much higher, with a 
capacity of joy so much larger than this thrush, am 
yet so unsatisfied/' But at this time you had not 
suffered enough to find out the secret of true happi- 
ness, paradoxical as this may sound. I am con- 
vinced that many natures learn it only in this way. 

I will pass over the events of a few years — the 
hard lessons, by which I am sure you have already 
profited much. I cannot but think that you are now 
able to perceive that the greatest human happiness 
must be an active and loving cooperation with our 
Father. Because His love is infinite, He gives 
blessings to all — to the infant, and to the most im- 
mature or feeble. But He must desire to give the 
highest happiness He can, and that He may do this, 
He gives to men the power of active and voluntary 
working with Him, that they may share, in their 
finite way, the infinite happiness He finds in His in- 
finite work. And now I will ask you to consider 
whether it must not be true that they who can re- 
ceive this best of Divine gifts, because they can 
meet His efforts with their own, must be unable 
to receive it unless they join their efforts with His ? 

I know that I lay a burden upon you in asking 
you to think all this out. Not at once, nor yet at 



RELIEF THROUGH GRIEF 



many times. But I beg you to try, and persist in 
trying ; for great will be your reward. It will come, 
not at once, possibly not soon, but it will come in 
the knowledge and invigoration of your own power, 
in the conscious elevation of thought and of your 
whole being. More than this, in the clearer percep- 
tion of your Father, and in ever growing trust and 
gratitude, and ever clearer recognition of His pres- 
ence in His word and in His works, in all the cir- 
cumstances of being, in all the events of your own 
life. 

I would not deceive you. All this cannot come 
unless you pay the price ; and this may be painful 
effort, suffering, and grief. But may you live to 
know how — 

" From grief comes glory 
As the rainbow from the cloud." 



HEAVEN AND HELL 



II. 



I HAS TEN to answer your last letter which inter- 
ested me much, for I find that you have been not 
only reading the book which I suggested on Heaven 
and Hell, but have been thinking as well as reading. 
Swedenborg says things about Heaven which you 
find it difficult to accept. But what are they ? This 
is just what I want you to tell me, just what I want 
you to tell distinctly to yourself. One trouble I 
think I know — you cannot believe the fact that 
Heaven does not contain all who die. You wish all 
to be in Heaven. " God must wish it more than I 
do ; but He is omnipotent. If then, He wishes 
this more than I can, why does He not exert His 
omnipotence to effect it?" I will not now argue 
this with you, but leave it for you to consider. 
Does not your trouble about this matter recall most 
vividly my own when first called upon to forsake the 
vague but pleasing faith in which I had always in- 
dulged — that somehow all would become good and 
happy in exchanging this world for a higher one, 
although it might be after a longer or shorter period 
of trial and purification ? 



6 REJECTED TRUTH CLOSES A DOOR 

An explanation of this difficulty would involve an 
inquiry into the origin and nature of evil. Let me 
postpone anything like a discussion of this question 
to a future time. One reason for this delay is, that 
however willing you might be to believe certain 
truths, your intellect would necessarily reject them 
if offered prematurely. And rejected truth closes a 
door — closes not fastens, but closes at least for a 
time. But in the mean time think about it. 

On reading over what I have written I become 
aware what a burden I have laid on your unprac- 
tised strength. It must seem to you nothing less 
than the solution of the whole problem of being — the 
reconciliation of any and all human suffering with 
perfect and omnipotent love. For a little thought 
will convince you that the difficulty is much the 
same as to this world and to the other. The only 
difference is that here you know there is misery and 
the problem is to account for it. There, you do not 
know that it exists and you deny it because you 
cannot account for it. 

If you had died at birth and grown up in heaven, 
and the comers from this earth had told you of the 
sin and suffering and degradation which prevail 
here, it would have been still more difficult for you 
to believe that such things can be in the universe of 
God, than it is now for you to believe their existence 
in the spiritual world. 



THROUGH XIGHT IX TO LIGHT J 

This problem has vexed the most thoughtful minds 
and saddened the tenderest hearts in all ages. 
Heretofore all that could be done was to compel 
the acquiescence of the intellect and silence its 
denials, by proving from the analogy of all known 
existence, that a mingled thread of good and evil, of 
order and disorder, of joy and sorrow runs through 
all being. This was hard enough, but, thanks be 
to our Father, the truth has come which is the key 
to all these problems. 

This key, in a feeble and untrained hand as mine 
is, and yours still more, will not so unlock them as 
to leave no mystery behind. This I do not pretend 
to do, and may almost say I do not desire. I have 
no wish to lose the pleasure of progress in thought, 
while I can see surely and certainly that I am tread- 
ing a pathway towards the Truth. " Evening and 
morning " belong always to every day of creation ; 
evening first, for it is the doubt, the uncertainty, the 
question, the sense of darkness and want which 
must come first ; and the light follows for then it is 
sought. If there were no night there could be no 
morning. 

This key is in that great truth, unknown on earth 
until Swedenborg told it. The truth, that human 
life is God's own life, given to man to be his own, in- 
cessantly given to be absolutely his own, his selfhood, 
himself. God gives this life to man because there 



8 THE KEY TO THE PROBLEM 

can be no other life ; because if cut off from con- 
stant and continued effluence from God it would be 
what light is when we cut it off from its source and 
shut it up — and that is, nothing. And if it is given 
us to be our own and make each man himself, then 
man is not an imperfect fragment of God, but has 
his own personal individuality, and can forever co- 
work with God in building up his own happiness, 
and work so of himself, of himself but from God, in 
freedom and in power and consciousness of self-ex- 
isting power — not self-derived power, but self-exist- 
ing by God's gift. And this must be the greatest 
blessing Infinite Love can give to a creature, and 
therefore that which that Love must desire to give. 
Then I see clearly that all this necessarily involves 
power, duty, and responsibility; and then I have 
the key to all the vexed problems of the existence 
of evil. For if evil could not be, then the highest 
good could not be ; because all the highest good 
springs from or rather is the choice — the actual 
choice in actual and not illusory freedom — of good 
rather than evil. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW 



III. 



HOW well I understand, my dear young friend, 
what you say of your feelings about the Bible. 
You do not know that you have only your share of 
what is becoming the universal feeling of Christen- 
dom. Everywhere, among all who have any senti- 
ment of religion, with any freedom of thought, or 
any capacity of thinking about their thoughts, there 
is a prevalent sense of unrest and discomfort about 
the Bible. No two feel it just alike, for its aspects 
are innumerable. What does it all mean ? what is 
its cause ? what is to be its effect ? 

A hundred years ago, Swedenborg saw in the 
spiritual world a magnificent Temple, wherein lay 
the Word, opened, and girded with light, and over 
the gate of the Temple, was an inscription which 
grew into form as he looked, and he read " nunc 
licet,' 7 " Now it is permitted." He inquired what 
this meant. He was told that an age was drawing 
near when it would be permitted to inquire with 
perfect freedom into the Word ; into its origin, its 
character, its authority, its meaning ; and to investi- 



io A NEW LANGUAGE 

gate with the same freedom all questions of religious 
doctrines. 

In the long ages which have passed this was not 
permitted. Men were protected from it, because the 
results must have been disastrous. Therefore the 
Word was enveloped in its awful sanctity as in im- 
penetrable armor. Its mysterious holiness silenced 
all inquiry but that of the scorner. All that state or 
condition of thought has passed or is passing away. 
The age has come which Swedenborg saw in vision. 
The word " Free-thinker " was once, and not long 
since, synonymous with " Infidel ; " and now the 
most religious minds are asking the questions and 
urging the difficulties which formerly only to name 
was an act of irreligion. 

Why is all this now permitted ? Because now an 
answer can be given to all these questions ; a solu- 
tion for all these difficulties. 

But this work must be gradual and slow. Why 
■ — you may ask — why has He not written His truth 
legibly on the sky, and painted it with sunlight on 
the clouds, and made every flower and every leaf 
His page, and let the winds whisper His lessons ? 
Dear friend all this is so. The sky and cloud, the 
flower and leaf are His written page, and the winds 
utter His voice. But we have not learned the lan- 
guage in which they speak to us. You describe a 
beautiful cloud which seemed to you like a "very 



A NEW SCIENCE 



glimpse into heaven." You did not know that in 
fact and in truth it was just that. You did not 
know, that simple, exact, and rigorous truth, scienti- 
fic truth, if it were but the truth now attainable in 
the science of religion, would have made that cloud 
as significant as it was beautiful ; would have taught 
you to look through all its splendor and glory to the 
glory beyond — to the sun within that material sun 
which painted the dark cloud with the flame you 
saw. So may that inner Sun, so will that inner Sun 
one day, make the clouds of your mind resplen- 
dent with light. Many may be the days and nights 
of your pilgrimage ; but let us pray that every night 
may be bounded by the beauty of evening and the 
promise of dawn. 

To return to your Bible difficulty. You say that 
you are quite ready to believe in a spiritual mean- 
ing, and indeed see no other road out of the infinite 
perplexities and apparent incongruities which beset 
you on every hand. But if the science of correspond- 
ences is to be the key which will open the door into 
this blessed region of light, how are you to apply 
it ? Does it seem a hard answer to say that patient 
and prayerful study and a simple belief that the 
Bible is God's own Word, will help you in this ? I 
verily believe that nothing more than these are 
wanted to help us at least to all that we need from 
the Divine Word. The simple, loving heart, will 
find truth soonest. 



12 A BESETTING TROUBLE 

You ask if the passages in the Word which now 
contain in the literal sense beautiful and heart 
reaching truths, still contain other, higher, more 
beautiful, and more searching truth. I can easily 
make the general answer, They do. But I would say 
more. The literal sense hides the spiritual meaning 
far more completely in some parts than in others. 
In many texts there is a spiritual meaning distinctly 
expressed in the letter. It comes to the surface and 
is one with the letter. Swedenborg compares these 
passages to the human face, which is not clothed, 
but reveals and expresses the inmost thoughts and 
feelings of the man. 

You have been troubled with a difficulty which 
besets and of necessity must beset all who begin 
this work of searching for the inner truth of the 
Word. You hear an explanation of some passage 
which is utterly meaningless in the literal sense, so 
far as relates to any religious truth. And in the 
light of this explanation it is full of the most beauti- 
ful, most useful instruction. The first impression 
is one of delight that a truth is presented to you so 
full of charm and power. But then comes the 
thought, How can I know that this is the spiritual 
sense ? What can assure me that another mind of 
equal ingenuity may not extract from this passage 
another meaning wholly different but of equal power 
and beauty ? 



WHAT THIS EARTH IS 13 

The first answer is one of which you can learn 
the full force only slowly and gradually. It is that 
our interpretation of the Scripture is founded upon 
exact and definite principles, which can be accu- 
rately learned ; or rather upon laws of interpretation 
which justify the use of the phrase, " Science of Cor- 
respondence." 

Another answer, however, is one which I am anx- 
ious to bring before you intelligibly. Let me then 
say that the phrase, the spiritual meaning of any 
passage of Scripture, is not so good as a spiritual 
meaning. Try to remember that this little earth on 
which we live is the foundation on which all the 
heavens, consisting of all good men who ever lived 
here, rest. It is the last and lowest ultimate towards 
which converge and in which end all the creative 
and causative influences from all those heavens. 
Hence, innumerable and inconceivable influences of 
life come down into and centre in any one thing 
that is here, and that thing is a fitting basis to re- 
ceive them all, and to be what it is because it receives 
them all. 

It is just so with the literal sense of the Word. 
For there is no passage there which is not the cloth- 
ing and expression of innumerable higher senses. 
It is the lowest step of the ladder which rests upon 
the ground, but which goes up higher than the hea- 
vens, and on which the angels of God are forever 



14 NO TWO SEE EXACTLY ALIKE 

descending and ascending — descending to find man 
in his lowest possible condition, and present their 
truth in a form adapted to him, and ascending to 
bear upwards all who are willing to go up with them. 

The next thing I would have you observe is, that 
while there is but one literal sense, no two persons 
who discern a higher and interior sense would see it 
in precisely the same way ; for to every one it pre- 
sents itself, in its aspect and in its application, as 
that which suits their character and wants. Nor 
would they use precisely the same words to express 
it. And these diversities might be so great that 
there might seem to be almost inconsistency be- 
tween them. But there would be none in fact. 

My purpose in saying all this is to give you free- 
dom and hope. Begin where you will. This begin- 
ning, like that of all good progress, will have its 
difficulty, but will I think give you pleasure. And 
as you go on you will find the difficulty less, and the 
enjoyment more. Apply to any passages the simple 
laws of interpretation which you know now. You 
may not succeed in the first effort, or the second ; 
but of this be sure, that when you do succeed in find- 
ing an interpretation which, while it accords with the 
principles of correspondence, gives to any passage 
new meaning and new life, that is a spiritual meaning 
for you. 

You speak of the twelfth chapter of Romans. It 



WHAT TRUE INSPIRATION IS 15 

is indeed a most instructive and a most spiritual 
chapter. But it will perhaps surprise you to hear 
that the Canon of the New Testament, the true 
Canon, consists only of the Gospels and the Revela- 
tion. The epistles were written by men of sense, 
men wise in spiritual or religious truth, and of pro- 
found piety. But they were not inspired. Their 
letters to the churches or in a few cases to individu- 
als have been, by the permission of Divine Provi- 
dence, received from early ages as authorized Sacred 
Writings, and bound up with the inspired books, be- 
cause of their immense utility from the stores of re- 
ligious wisdom they contain. And they have been 
all the more needed and all the more useful, because 
the ignorance that there was any spiritual sense in 
the Gospels made so much of them, and especially 
so much of their mere narrative, of comparatively 
little use for religious instruction. Eminently useful 
the epistles indeed are ; and Swedenborg often re- 
fers to them, for illustration of the spiritual sense of 
the Word, properly so called. 

The great difference is here. The Gospels and 
the Revelation were written by inspiration, and con- 
tain in all their words infinite stores of wisdom 
which were unknown to those who were employed as 
the subjects of inspiration to write them. The epis- 
tles are wise and good only because the writers were 
so, and only as far as they were so. 



1 6 ST. PAUL'S REASONING 

Take for example the twentieth verse of the 
twelfth chapter of Romans : " Therefore if thine 
enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him 
drink : for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire 
on his head." The first clauses contain and express 
with great force truth which cannot be too deeply 
rooted in every heart. But the reason given for 
feeding a hungry enemy is St. Paul's own reason. 
There is very little of spiritual character about it, 
nor is there any spiritual meaning in it. It elevates 
the feeling of hostility, but does not extinguish it. 
It says, return good for evil, because you will inflict 
upon the enemy whom you relieve the pain and 
anguish of remorse. It is far better to return good 
for evil even for this reason, than to return evil for 
evil ; but then it is not a spiritual reason. For all 
that, let the epistles minister to you all the good 
they can. There is in them much religious truth of 
the greatest value ; much that may well open the 
mind to far higher truth than they can impart. 



A SERMOJVETTE 17 



IV. 



THIS morning a text of Scripture fell under my 
eye and fastened itself upon me, and I have 
been thinking of it, at times, through the day. Shall 
I tell you why ? I cannot without writing you a 
sermonette upon the text. 

" The axe is laid unto the root of the tree." What 
is the axe ? It represents truth in its destruction of 
error, when it seems hard and sharp and pitiless, for 
so it must seem while it is doing this work. How 
easy it is to recognize the beauty of truth, to accept 
it even with the purpose of obeying it, to let it prune 
away many exuberances of thought and feeling, 
perhaps cut off some things which were as a very 
pleasant fruit to us ; and then to stop, then to think 
the work done which is only begun. For that work 
is not done till " the axe is laid unto the root of the 
tree." 

You read your Bible, and read it reverently ; and 
yet has the lesson been often before your mind 
which it is always teaching — the absolute opposi- 
tion between all that we are naturally, and that 



1 8 LIFE IS CONTINUOUS CHANGE 

which we should become ; the lesson taught in such 
words as those which commend us to hate our own 
life — to lose our life that we may save it ! 

Who is there nowadays that reads such things 
without the feeling that they are rhetorical and ex- 
travagant expressions, which no one can suppose 
intended to be taken as true in their full extent and 
breadth, and in their plain and direct meaning ? And 
yet this is just what is intended. These are God's 
words, said to you, yourself, just as much as if He 
whispered them in your ear, and you alone of all the 
earth heard them. 

And then you will ask me, How can I obey this 
command ? How can I at once, by any effort of 
my will, change the whole nature of that will, and 
hate what I have always loved, and love with my 
whole heart and soul what I certainly have never 
loved in that way ? 

Of course you cannot. There can be no greater 
impossibilities. What then is the true question ? 
It is, Is this end distinctly before you as one which 
your Father invites you to approach and will help 
you to approach ; one that you yourself must con- 
stantly and steadfastly strive to reach, as nearly as 
may be, and by all the means which every day and 
hour offer to you. Anything less than this would 
be, at the very least, weakness. You know that no 
night when you sleep finds you just where you were 



IN HIS IMAGE 19 



when you rose. That day offered you the means of 
advancement ; some means, either by learning new 
truth, obeying something you had learned, doing 
something, no matter what, to cast off the influence 
of w r orldliness and the habit of frivolity, to build 
yourself into the stature of an earnest and resolute 
woman, who, instead of floating on the current of 
circumstances, makes use of them for her eternal 
good. 

Some one says, " Unless above himself he can 
erect himself, how poor a thing is man ! " A grand 
thought and well to be remembered, if we remember 
also that this self, above which we must rise, is that 
poor creature which man has made himself, in the 
abuse of our God-given freedom ; a far different 
creature from that regenerated self, the Divine 
image, which we were intended to be. 



2 THE WORST ROBBERY 



V. 



LET me try to give you some thoughts which I 
have been full of lately. They relate to a text 
of Scripture to which, I suppose, before the Science 
of Correspondence was revealed, it was impossible 
for any one to ascribe a spiritual meaning. You 
remember Pilate said to the Jews, " Whom will ye 
that I should release unto you, Barabbas or Jesus ? " 
But the chief priests and elders persuaded the mul- 
titude that they should ask for Barabbas, and destroy 
Jesus. " Now Barabbas was a robber." He had 
" made an insurrection," and " had committed mur- 
der in the insurrection." 

The worst and last robbery is robbery from God, 
which steals away from Him the faith and the affec- 
tions which should be His, and robs Him of our 
love, our obedience, and our trust. The same feel- 
ing and falsity which does this, " makes an insur- 
rection " against Him, seeks to dethrone Him, deny 
His sovereignty, and His right to our constant wor- 
ship, obedience, and love, and even His personal 
existence, if it cannot otherwise deny this sover- 



WHICH SHALL DIE ? 21 

eignty. In this insurrection it commits " a murder/' 
the murder of the very soul — of all that constitutes 
true life within us. And all this is Barabbas. And 
Barabbas and Jesus cannot both live within us. 
One must die. Yes, every emotion of selfishness or 
worldliness in every soul plays the part of Barabbas. 
Good influences may have prevailed for a time, and 
they, or perhaps motives of worldly regard, may 
have put Barabbas in prison, and under some re- 
straint ; but the decisive, the fatal question remains, 
Shall he die ? Yes, he or Jesus. The powers of 
evil ruling in us, our priests and elders, come to his 
rescue, because they hate and fear the influence of 
Jesus. They persuade the multitude of thoughts 
and feelings which take the side of worldliness to 
liberate and save him. They do save him, and Jesus 
dies ! 

Nor is it only on great occasions and in fearful 
crises that this question comes to us. Every hour, 
every moment, when we resist what we must know 
to be the influence of our Lord, and, casting that 
aside, give the victory, under whatever pretence or 
name, to that which is indeed our own Barabbas, we 
then do all that we are able to do to crucify our 
Lord anew. 

Every emotion which tempts us to refuse obedi- 
ence to Him, "to make insurrection," to suppress 
and overcome whatever sense of right conscience 



2 2 WHAT ANIMALS ARE 

gives — is not that the robber, rebel, murderer, Ba- 
rabbas ? We may have indeed imprisoned him, we 
may have resolved that he should die — shall we 
now release him from restraint, and let him go free ? 
If we do, we know now what must happen — we 
know between what alternatives we choose. 

And who proposes the question to us ? Pilate, 
who said to our Lord, " Knowest thou that I 
have power to crucify thee, and have power to re- 
lease thee ? " And Jesus did not deny this, but 
said, " Thou couldest have no power against me, 
except it were given thee from above." You know 
that the first chapter of Genesis tells us that God 
gave man dominion over all fish, fowl, cattle (or 
beasts), and creeping things. This means more 
than that man, aiding his hands by his intellect, is 
stronger than they are, and can kill a whale, tame 
an elephant, and cage a lion — it means much more. 
All animals, like all other things in nature, represent 
and symbolize things of the spirit. Each animal 
lives because he is the impersonation of some of the 
intellectual or affectional elements of human nature. 
Sometimes this element in a man acquires such as- 
cendancy that it characterizes him, and we call him 
a fox, a serpent, a bear, or a wolf, as he seems to be 
dominated by the element of life which that animal 
represents. Over all these, as they are in himself, 
that is to say, over himself and all that constitutes 



FALSE IDEAS OF WORLDLINESS 23 

his selfhood, dominion is given him. He is his own 
master, and becomes whatever by the exercise of 
this power he makes himself to be. Pilate here 
represents this power of self-determination which is 
"given to us from above," with all its fearful re- 
sponsiblities ; because if it were not given, nothing 
else could be given. It constitutes our freedom. 
Without it we could not receive, by our own choice, 
by our own cooperation with our Father, and into 
our own love, His gifts of life ; and because we can 
so receive them, we can also refuse them. Which 
shall we do ? 

I have left my letter open, and to-day so many 
thoughts press upon me which I would gladly im- 
part to you, that it is with more difficulty than usual 
that I give expression to them — for the throng push 
and jostle each other, and will not proceed in orderly 
fashion. I think it was writing to you of Pilate, yes- 
terday, that gave me the text for my thoughts of to- 
day. I am going to write to you about worldliness. 

The common idea of this is a devotion to wealth 
and distinction, or to low pursuits. This is well 
enough as far as it goes ; but it is as nothing to the 
whole truth. What is the world ? It is our home 
in this beginning of our being ; and that it may be 
our home, it is exactly adapted to our needs, our 
senses, our enjoyment. The world, in this sense, is 



24 IN THE WORLD, NOT OF IT 

all that is outside of us, all that is not a part of our 
me. And " the love of the world " is the love of 
this world. 

There have been many in all ages who thought 
so, and who therefore renounced the world, and de- 
nied themselves the pleasures of sense and soci- 
ety, more or less completely. Was this good ? It 
may have been so for them — it may have been the 
only way in which they could escape from a great 
danger. " If thy right eye offend (endanger) thee, 
pluck it out and cast it from thee." But was it in 
itself right, in itself the best thing ? Certainly not. 
Certainly this is not the best way to escape from 
social and sensuous worldliness. The only place in 
which we can really overcome a wrongful love of the 
world is in the world. 

Society — is it a good or a bad thing ? It is in 
itself more than good. It is indispensable to man. 
To be sure of this one needs only to remember that 
the man who is entirely alone is entirely useless ; 
and usefulness is the one condition of the happi- 
ness of heaven, and therefore of all true happiness 
— for that can exist on earth only when it comes 
down from heaven. Let us remember, too, the 
kindly affections which demand some social relations 
for their birth and growth. Then, is all love of so- 
ciety good ? Certainly not. For here we must ap- 
ply the universal rule. Neither this love, nor any 



THE MOTIVE SETTLES THE END 25 

natural love, is of itself good or evil. Whether it be 
one or the other, is determined by something other 
than itself. Social pleasure, for example, is good 
and elevating, or bad and degrading, according to 
the end it has in view, the place it holds in the mind, 
the reasons for which it is sought, and the principles 
by which it is governed. 

If one enjoys social pleasures with no desire to 
give enjoyment to others — if, in giving them enjoy- 
ment, the thing which delights us most is the hom- 
age paid to our own attractions, the favor we win, 
the delight of knowing that our beauty, or grace, or 
conversation are admired — if all these are the rul- 
ing elements of our social pleasures, then, be our 
success what it may, and whatever charms of refine- 
ment or elegance we may present in our social rela- 
tions, there is social worldliness ; and it is a poor, 
bad thing, and an inevitably degrading thing. 

So, too, social pleasure is social worldliness when 
it is sought and loved for its own sake alone, merely 
as amusement — merely to fill up the vacancies of 
an unemployed life, and only because it banishes 
ennui for a moment. 

Why do I say all this to you ? You have not been 
prone to seek or enjoy society because it gratified 
your vanity, nor to seek in it your own enjoyment re- 
gardless of the happiness of others. Nor do I know 
that you love it too well. Why, then, do I speak of 



26 THE LOVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 

it to you ? Because, my dear young friend, I would 
have society hold a very different place in your re- 
gard. I do not wish you to love it less, except so 
far as that may come from loving some better thing 
more ; and of this I will speak presently, after first 
considering another form of worldliness. 

It may seem very strange to hear me speak of 
your love of music and of the beautiful in nature 
or art, as having any relation to worldliness, and 
yet it is most certain that these things lie outside of 
us. They belong to the world that is made for us, 
and adapted to our senses ; and the love of them is 
the love of a part of that w r orld. 

Consider the love of the beautiful. Not long ago 
we were speaking of the great happiness which may 
be derived from this faculty ; and you will ask if I 
am not now about to censure the exercise of the same 
faculty. Far, far from it. Yet I think I told you 
then that there were many ways of loving the beau- 
tiful. Look only at a few principles which relate 
not merely to this but to all supersensuous truths. 

Your life is from God. It is His life, limited and 
finited for you, and adapted to you, and given you 
to be your life, that He might have beings whom 
He might bless eternally with ever-growing happi- 
ness. He made man " in His own image and like- 
ness/' The meaning and the effect of this is, that 
whatever there is in God's life infinitely, may enter 



HOW TO LOVE IT 27 

into man's life finitely So much of the divine life 
as does in fact enter man's life in this world, is so 
inexpressibly small in comparison with what man 
might have, that it seems to be almost nothing. 
Nor do precisely the same elements of Divine Life 
enter into any two persons, or in precisely the same 
degree. 

Now let me apply this to the love of the beauti- 
ful. God loves beauty infinitely, loves to make it, 
and loves to perceive it. Think of the wild loveli- 
ness of a South American forest, where no human 
foot ventures, where there is no human eye to gaze 
with delight on all the exquisite details ; or of a 
richly colored sunset over a lonely sea — what exqui- 
site beauty is here. We should, however, think, in 
our poor way, that the beauty was wasted. But it is 
seen by God's eye, seen and delighted in with that 
delight of which our own, when we too* see it, is but 
so small a part, so dim an image. 

If one has no love of the beautiful, it is because 
he or she does not receive and make their own that 
element of the Divine life ; for if it were not an ele- 
ment of Divine life, it could not be an element of 
human life ; as there is not one particle of human 
life that originates in man himself, or is any other 
thing than the Divine life which is within him, and 
is his because it is constantly given to him. 

But then comes in the universal, the inevitable, 



28 SHALL IT BE UPWARD OR DOWNWARD? 

and inexorable law, that God's own life is given to 
man to be man's own life, to cause him to be him- 
self — to be that, and only that, which he makes 
himself by his own choice to be ; and, therefore, this 
must be just that life in him, in general and in every 
particular, which he makes it to be, and loves that 
it should be. 

And now let me apply this law, also, to the love 
of the beautiful. Is it not plain that our love of this 
may lift our eyes heavenward, or turn them down- 
ward ? It may be mere sensuousness, however 
seemingly refined, graceful, and charming ; or it 
may be sensuousness filled and elevated by some- 
thing higher than sense. 

The world is extremely beautiful — it is brimful 
of beauty — of more beauty a thousand-fold than 
the keenest sense has ever yet discovered. How 
dim and poor the love of the beautiful is in most 
minds ; in how many is it almost wholly wanting. 
How apt one is who sees and loves so much that is 
beautiful, to suppose he sees it all. And yet it is 
certain that the clearest and keenest perception of 
the beautiful might become as much larger, wider, 
and clearer than it now is, as itself now is more than 
the dimmest perception of the beautiful in those who 
have least of it. But is it not better to have little 
of it, or none, than to permit it to fasten our eyes, 
and our thoughts, and our enjoyments to this earth ; 



THE LUST OF THE EYE 29 

to make us love it for itself, and be content with it ; 
to dim our thoughts, and weaken our desires and 
aspirations after a higher happiness than can ever 
come through the senses ? For this is " the lust of 
the eye." And when is this enjoyment of the beau- 
tiful the happiness of the eye, and not its lust ? The 
answer will occur to you. It is when you cannot 
see the beautiful and delight in it, without recogniz- 
ing it as His work, His gift, and as the expression 
of His own perfect order and perfect love. 

And if this habitual recognition comes only grad- 
ually, may we not be sure that every effort after it 
will help to bring it ; that as it comes it will open 
our eyes to the beauty of the beautiful ; that it will 
open our minds to its lessons, its significance — I 
might say, to that soul of the beautiful which clothes 
itself in beauty, and seeks to express itself in its 
form and aspect. 

And then, again, remember that when our Father 
gives us this love of the beautiful, and through this 
love this power, He can do no more. The rest is 
for us to do. Without our willingness, without our 
effort, this end cannot be reached, this purpose can- 
not be accomplished. But what efforts can we make 
which will not be immeasurably repaid ? 

And now let me offer you the general lesson for 
which all that I have said was preparatory. What 
is the true antagonist of worldliness ? What is 



30 LOOKING WITHIN 

worldliness ? For if we see that, we can see its oppo- 
site. But we have seen that worldliness, in its 
widest and most general sense, is the undue love of 
the world without us. Does it not follow that this 
must be checked and controlled by awakening a pro- 
founder interest for the world within ? by holding in 
the mind an earnest and a constant love for the en- 
joyments w r hich rightfully belong to the world with- 
in ? They are the love for truth, the delight in 
growing wise, the delight in your very effort to grow 
wise, the happiness to be derived from the con- 
sciousness that you have given yourself to God ; 
that it is the very business of your life to cultivate^ 
I every faculty you have (the highest most, and most 
in the highest directions), in the belief that He has 
given them to you thaCyou may become His instru- 
ment for usefulness ; and that He asks this of you 
because, if you grant it, you enable Him to give you 
more of his own happiness than you can otherwise 
^receive, and far more than you can imagine. 

You are not wholly safe against worldliness until 
this way of thinking and feeling becomes the con- 
stant habit of your life. Whatever is less than this 
is not enough. 

If you felt yourself called upon to go into a con- 
vent, or to dress and live as a sister of charity, I 
know very well it would not be a heavier task. 
Then, with one great effort you would be pledged, 



LIKE A LITTLE CHILD 31 

committed, and much more than half the work would 
be done. But now you are asked to change your 
whole nature by a constant, unremitted effort ; to 
make it the primary object of your life ; to become 
the child of God in a sense you never thought of. 
It is your Father who asks this of you — your Father, 
Who took upon Him your nature that He might suf- 
fer for you, that He might open a way to Himself 
which you might follow — Who entreats you to let 
Him give you His life. Oh ! to love Him with all 
the heart, and soul, and strength, is not a rhapsodi- 
cal fantasy, but a reality, to strive for, to win, to ac- 
cept even from His own hands ; and, in accepting, 
to find peace and happiness. And while He is 
beckoning you to come to His side, to His arms — 
while He is showing you, even by my poor words, 
the place which He asks you to come to Him and 
fill — you will remember that what you are through 
eternity, how near to Him, or how far away, and the 
character and the nature of your happiness — all 
depend on what you do, with His help, and the 
strength He gives, but of yourself and for yourself 
in this life. 

Again you may say to me, give me something 
practical, some test I can lay my hand on and make 
use of. I will do so. Would you know when you 
love society, or art, or nature, or music, too much, 
look into yourself and see which you love best — 



32 CHOOSE THIS DAY 

them, or a higher self-culture. In which direction 
lie your thoughts : where is your greater interest ? 
Count the hours of the day — are those which you 
may well deem a reasonable gift of time, and thought, 
and care to those higher interests, given to them ? 
Do you love, or are you even striving to love, the 
growing in the wisdom of heaven as you now love 
the lower pleasures ? On which side lies earnest- 
ness, enjoyment, ready and grateful reception, and a 
prompt use of every opportunity ? It should be for 
you to answer these questions ; and when you have 
answered them, it shall be for you to learn from your 
own answers. 



TRUE SYMBOLISM 33 



VI. 



MAX MULLER, speaking of the fact that all 
philologists notice, namely, that all words in 
all languages which have a moral and intellectual 
meaning, have primarily a sensuous meaning (right, 
meaning originally only a straight line — rule, a stick 
with a straight edge by which to make a straight 
line, etc.), says that the earliest men, far beyond all 
history, among whom language began, must have 
had a marvellous power of recognizing the analogies 
between things of the mind and things of sense, 
which is now comparatively lost. I quote from 
memory only. This struck me, because Sweden- 
borg says, on totally different grounds, that the ear- 
liest races perceived the symbolism of nature, and 
founded all their systems of thought upon those cor- 
respondences. The old mythologies have no other 
foundation; and it is that which has given to their 
fragments such a hold upon human thought. 

Now, why have I begun my letter in this fashion 
today? Simply because I was just reading over 
your last letter, and came upon this sentence : 



34 OUR VULNERABLE SPOT 

" B is as strong as Ajax, or rather Achilles, for 

he had a weak spot." And the thought occurred to 
me whether you knew how right you were. You re- 
member, because you allude to, the myth of Achilles. 
Well, he represented beauty, strength, valor, all in- 
vincible and invulnerable, except at his heel. Now 
what is the heel ? That part of us by which we do 
and must come in contact with the earth when we 
walk in its ways ; and the earth is all our external 
nature, relations, and interests. How many of us 
are always most vulnerable in this spot ! But the 
myth goes on. Achilles, after conquering all whom 
he encountered, perished because a subtle enemy 
smote him with a poisoned arrow in the heel, while 
he was worshipping in a temple. Since mankind 
began, no man or woman has ever taken a distinct 
step forward without finding the external opposed to 
and endangering the internal. There must be as- 
saults, and perils, and wounds, and often when we 
seek to worship in God's temple, the enemy finds us 
out, and will, if he can, bring up external cares, and 
interests, and thoughts, to distract us from the higher 
thoughts which we had begun to cherish. Yet, 
while God is on our side, what need we fear ; and if 
we only turn our helpless look to Him, He is there, 
at our side, strong to sustain. 

You give me one of you* dreams, a very charming 



WHAT DREAMS ARE 35 

one, and it has set me thinking, for the hundredth 
time, what are dreams ? In some respects they are 
certainly like the scenes of life in another world. 
In the first place, time and space, when and where, 
disappear. Or, rather, while we see things in our 
dreams as if in measured space or place, and there 
is that succession of facts and occurrences which is 
all we mean by time, yet place and time, or duration 
and succession, have not that fixity or determination 
which belong to them in our waking life, because in 
this life they are ultimated or fixed in unyielding 
matter. 

In this respect our dreams are undoubtedly like 
spiritual life. Are we then to look upon the acts, 
relations, and forms of spiritual life as dreamy, un- 
substantial, and unreal ? Far, very far from it ; for 
dreams are unlike spiritualities in this important 
respect. All power of self-determination is sus- 
pended and absent in dreams. Things go on, and 
we go on with them, at their own will. What they 
are, and through what course of events they lead to 
their results, depends upon conditions of body, or 
mind, and influences which act through them, and 
are their only causes or directors ; and with them 
we do not interfere by our personal wills. Just the 
opposite of this is spiritual life. There, the personal- 
ity and the power of self-determination are far more 
distinct and positive than here. There, as in our 



36 THE OTHER LIFE 

dreams, what is outside of us is but the outbirth of 
what is active within us. But that activity is subject 
to our own conscious control ; and this power, defi- 
nitely exerted there, and not weakly and confusedly 
as it is here even in our waking hours, gives to the 
outside world and outside events an order, regularity, 
and permanence far greater than they have here. 

I suppose that when we are first in that world, 
and perhaps while we remain in the world of spirits, 
there may be sudden and great changes in the ap- 
pearance of the external world. These changes can 
occur, because there the mind uses and moulds 
space and time, but is not controlled by them. And 
these changes may occur for purposes of discipline 
and instruction. But they who go up from that 
world to their abiding home, carry with them defined 
and settled character and purposes. All their qual- 
ities may be developed continually forever, but never 
violently altered by paroxysmal changes within, or 
corresponding changes without. And all changes 
are as gradual, and successive, and peaceful as the 
growth in blossoming and beauty of the garden in 
the days of spring ; and thus give the idea, not of 
fleeting transientness, but of permanence and endur- 
ance, amid the changes of growing life. 

The absolute suspension of self-determination in 
dreams is as perfect in the mind as in the muscles ; 
and this gives to dreams one possible utility. It 



WHAT DREAMS MAY TEACH 37 

enables us to see ourselves as we are ; or, more ac- 
curately, to see a part of what is in us. We may do 
base and sinful things in dreams, which we should 
mistake in regarding as true pictures of ourselves ; 
because this self-control and choice of good against 
temptation to do evil, is a part of ourselves, and a 
most important part. But it is all absent in dreams. 
Hence foul things escape from the darkness and in- 
activity in which we keep them, and always shall, 
while we are awake and self-controlling. We hide 
them there, and do not always know that they are 
there. But these ghastly shapes could not appear 
in our dreams if they were not already within us. 
They may then teach us what we should become, if 
we were not withheld by the strength He gives us, 
and guarded by His constant and merciful Provi- 
dence. 



38 MAN ALWAYS IN FREEDOM 



VII. 

I DO not remember just when my last letter was 
dated, but have an impression that I have al- 
lowed a longer interval than usual to elapse between 
yours and my answer. There are moods when even 
in this world it is hard to measure time by the ordi- 
nary rules of sunsettings and sunrisings, and perhaps 
one of these moods has been mine. But let me go 
to other topics, and try to tell you certain thoughts 
that have been busy with me lately. 

Something led me to notice what is always so ob- 
vious, the mingling of good and evil which exists in 
everything in this world. I was more than ever im- 
pressed with its universality, and remembering the 
common statement of Swedenborg, that this world 
and all things belonging to it are intermediate be- 
tween heaven and hell, and the reason that he gives, 
that this equilibrium may be universal, and man 
always in freedom to turn whither he will, I went 
further to another conclusion I do not remember 
thinking of before. 

This mingling of opposites is indeed universal. 



WHA T HE A VEN IS 39 

In all things of external nature, good and evil, the 
kind and sweet and lovely, meet and mingle with the 
harsh and painful and repulsive ; the life-giving with 
the life-destroying ; and things which make life pleas- 
ant with those which make it a pain and burden. 
They are so in externals because they are so in in- 
ternals ; they are so in that which is the mirror of 
all that is within, because that mirror is truthful. 
We might, then, learn from it, if we did not know 
before, that these same opposites meet in every per- 
son, in all character, in every event, in every act, 
feeling, or thought. Now for my inference. What 
is Heaven ? Just all these elements of the good, of 
the beautiful, and the pleasant, liberated from all 
admixture with evil. They are all from heaven, they 
are in some form or measure in all things here ; and 
freed from all that opposes or weakens them here, 
they constitute the all of heaven. Seldom in exact 
equilibrium at any time here, the more of either 
quality at one time balances the more of the oppos- 
ing quality of another time, and so on the whole 
there comes that equalizing of two elements from 
which arises our capacity of obeying the command, 
" Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." We can- 
not but obey — but if we choose aright, then comes 
the result for which we live ; we go where this equal- 
izing of opposites no longer is needed, and no longer 
exists. 

If heaven, as a whole, is constituted by all the 



40 THIS LIFE DECIDES FOR EACH 

elements of good which ever descend from it, so the 
heaven of each person may consist of all the ele- 
ments of good, of true happiness, of justified hope, 
of pure enjoyment ever known in the faint and dim 
way we know them here, but cleansed from all stains, 
and liberated from fear or doubt ; beginning, even 
there, it may be feebly, but with the peaceful cer- 
tainty of unchecked growth, of uninterrupted contin- 
uance. I have half a doubt whether any entirely 
new elements of happiness come after death to those 
who live on earth into adult life. Is it not enough 
if all we knew here are freed and perfected, and ever 
growing with constant development ? And thus each 
one's heaven is his own, and is the outgrowth and 
fruit of his life here. 

Nor when I say that each one's heaven is his own, 
do I mean to convey any idea of isolation, except in 
so far as it is essential to the preservation of our 
distinct individuality, which is something that can 
never be taken from us. Rather would I give you, 
if possible, the comfort of my own profound assur- 
ance, that the spiritual loneliness which all of us 
must at times feel so intensely here, will be in a 
great measure done away with there, and that the 
giving and receiving of a sympathy more perfect 
than ever was dreamed of in any earthly friendship, 
will be a great part of the joy of heavenly life. 
Adaptation is the one secret of genuine enjoyment 
of human intercourse. In this world we scarcely 



OUR POSSIBILITIES KNOWN 41 

seek it, and if we do we seldom find it. But in the 
other world it is the law of life ; for there, by the 
very necessity of their natures, they are nearer each 
other who can be and do more for each other, and 
they are nearest who can do most. 

In one view life is a kind of commerce, in which 
we supply each other's needs, nearly all of it by that 
compulsion of want which keeps the world agoing. 
But this very want and compulsion are permitted, 
that the habit of mutual assistance may grow up to 
be, as far as possible, a preparation for that life 
where the merchandise exchanged is of the heart 
and soul. 

Our Father seems to prepare us for His heaven 
in two ways. Some He leads to thirst for His truth, 
to receive it, to live upon it here, and taste the peace 
it gives. In some He only kindles a passionate and 
earnest longing for the truth, and a sense of desola- 
tion in the midnight of its absence, and so prepares 
them to receive of it in His "kingdom of light," as 
the panting hart drinks of the water brooks. He 
knows which way is best for us ; He knows what is 
possible for us ; He knows what obstructions inheri- 
tance or education have planted ; and He knows how 
to prepare us for truth, and to delay its coming 
until the hour when delay is no longer necessary — 
and to do this so as to save us from the misery of 
rejecting offered truth. 



42 A PERSONAL PROMISE 

A neighbor of mine has a severe affliction in the 
loss of all use of his eyes. In reading with him this 
evening, a new view came to me of a passage I have 
read a hundred times ; and as I return to my desk 
and find this unfinished sheet lying here, I think you 
must let me tell you my thoughts on the text, even 
though they may strike you at first as not quite in 
harmony with the rest of my letter. The words 
were these — " I will make all things new." I have 
always regarded this as a prophecy of a new heaven 
and a new earth, of a sun which will shine in heaven 
with tenfold splendor, because the love which reigns 
there will be poured forth as never before, and will 
be in the hearts of the angels purer and warmer than 
ever before, and the wisdom will grow as the love 
grows ; and of a new earth, where the influence of 
the new heaven will bring new order, and peace, and 
happiness. But I see in this prophecy a promise — 
an individual and personal promise ; and what hope 
it might bring to the sin-laden soul — sin-laden, but 
repentant ! He will make all things new. If we can 
but carry into the other world, not only a conscious- 
ness of how evil we have been and are, but an ear- 
nest desire to escape from this evil, and that a new 
heart may be given us, then we may hope for just 
this help — this change. If we feel that over all our 
thoughts, and affections, and motives, the trail of the 
serpent has left its stains, and look at these things 



THE GERM THA T MUST BE IN US 43 

till the whole head is faint and the whole heart sick, 
we may still remember the promise that He will 
make all things new. And yet in one sense, not all. 
The very condition of this total change, without 
which it cannot take place, is that there shall be 
within us a germ of goodness, which, received from 
our Father, we have rooted in repentant sorrow for 
evil done. If this, however weak and poor, be still 
a living germ, from it the new growth may come. 
Then, whatever of goodness or truth there may be 
in us will not perish — for nothing good can perish 
— but will be saved, and cleansed, and strengthened, 
and all conflicting tendencies will gradually be sup- 
pressed. And yet even this good, which is thus 
preserved, will in a still higher sense be "made 
new." " Sown in corruption, it will be raised in in- 
corruption." It will be cleansed from the clinging 
defilement of a belief that this good is from our- 
selves, originating in ourselves, and proving our own 
excellence ; and with the increasing clearness of our 
perception that whatever is good within us came 
from our Father, will grow our grateful joy that He 
has given us this good to be our own. 

" Out of the depths " — even out of the depths of 
conscious sinfulness, we may look up with hope, that 
while it trembles is still hope, if we can be sure that 
we have learned, even in those depths, a repentance 
as profound as the sins which it makes us hate, and 
hate ourselves for. 



44 WHY MAN IS FREE 



VIII. 

CHRISTMAS. — All Christendom is now cele- 
brating the day when, nearly two thousand 
years ago, Jesus Christ was born. 

When Jesus Christ was born ! What words are 
these ! Of the myriad topics which they suggest, I 
select but one ; and that I will endeavor to set forth 
as simply as possible. 

First, then, is it not certain that if God were 
utterly alien and foreign to man, and wholly other 
than man, it would be simply impossible for us to 
have any idea of Him, and therefore impossible for 
us to have any love or gratitude towards or any 
recognition of Him ? But all this we can have ; 
and is not this possible to us, because our life is His 
life in us ? Is ours, then, Divine ? No ; because it 
is given us to be our own, and so made human. In 
its origin Divine, it is given us to be our own, and 
therefore to be whatever we choose to make it. The 
new system of faith concerning the relations between 
God and man, finds one of its chief foundations in 
the truth that man is free because his life is given 



LOVE DEMANDS LOVE 45 

to him to be his own ; and because our life is His 
life in us, we are able to form some conception of 
Him, and this, however dim and feeble in its begin- 
ning, may grow as we draw nearer to Him ; and 
whatever are the essential qualities, or powers, or 
laws of our life, they must also belong to His life ; 
or, in other words, our life, if perfectly free from per- 
version, would be, on a finite scale, what His is in- 
finitely. 

Now one of the most certain of the laws of life is, 
that love demands return ; that it cannot be in its 
freedom, and its fulness, and its entire happiness, 
unless it be returned. Even in the low condition of 
human nature, every one who has loved knows this. 
All the best happiness of human life rests upon mu- 
tuality of love, and the best happiness of heaven can 
have no other foundation. 

But if this be the law of His life in us, discernible 
even through our perversions, it must be the law of 
His life in Himself — only then it must be infinite. 

What follows ? That He must desire infinitely, 
from the necessity of His divine nature, that we 
should love Him — that on this foundation our high- 
est happiness might rest. How can it be otherwise 
if He is Love, perfect Love, and only Love ? If this 
seems to put a narrow limit to His happiness, Ave 
have but to remember that He has Infinity and Eter- 
nity in His constant view ; that He sees the whole 



46 HUMAN LOVE VS. DIVINE LOVE 

— the end. What the future is to Him we cannot 
see, because we think in the fetters of time ; but we 
may see this, that the future is not to Him what it 
is to us. He sees the end in the beginning, and 
towards this end all things in His view converge. 
And this end is an immeasurable Heaven of those 
who love Him as He desires, and whose love for 
Him He sees growing through eternity — and to 
whom He is able to impart of His own happiness, 
because they love Him. 

And how does He provide for such an end ? First 
by creating men — immortals — and giving them the 
power of loving, and then the command to love Him 
with all our strength, and all our mind, and all our 
soul, and giving them all the help they can receive 
to comply with this command. But is not love more 
disinterested which, however it may lament its own 
disappointment, yet loves on without return ? Is 
not the love which asks so urgently for a return 
selfish ? Yes, it may be very selfish, and whether it 
be so or not, we have a certain test which we find 
even here on earth. He who loves fervently is 
always tempted, sometimes sorely tempted to insist, 
and, if he can, compel a return. But this temptation 
is always from selfishness. Whoever has any good- 
ness or wisdom, even here, resists this temptation. 
He feels that such love would not be love — that it 
could not be one with his, in unity of happiness. 



LOVE AND FORCE IRRECONCILABLE 47 

What then will he do ? All that the tenderest af- 
fection, the most unwearied kindness, all that any 
service within human power can do, to win for him 
that voluntary love which is his heart's desire. But 
there he stops. From the next step he shrinks, for 
he knows that compulsion would prevent the love he 
seeks. 

So he feels and acts if he be good and wise, or, 
in other words, if God's life in him be in any degree 
unperverted. Because so God in His perfect wis- 
dom knows, and so in His perfect love He acts, in- 
finitely. All that Omnipotence can do, with all hea- 
ven and earth for its instruments, He does to lead 
us for our own good to love Him. But there He, 
too, stops. He knows, as we cannot, that love and 
force are antagonists, which not even Omnipotence 
can reconcile. Gladly he accepts any measure of 
voluntary love which we are willing to offer. More 
than this cannot be — for our Father who alone is 
wholly free from selfishness, has no desire to insist 
or compel. 

It is in working for this end that the whole of His 
providence has worked, and is ever working on the 
largest scale by successive dispensations, as the in- 
creasing preparedness of mankind permits higher 
truths and stronger motives to be offered. On the 
smaller scale, to each individual he offers only what 
he or she may accept, if only willing to work with 



4-8 WHY DO WE SUFFER? 

Him and His angels in overcoming those evils which 
oppose the reception of the gift. 

To us all He gives eternity for our love to grow 
in. And He gives us this beginning of eternity, 
this life on earth wherein we may begin the work — 
and then — this beginning determines the end. 

If it were otherwise, why do we live here ? why 
are we called to suffer through all the conflicts of 
this life? 

The beginning determines the end. It cannot 
determine whether God will love us all infinitely, or 
give us all the happiness which we can enjoy, for 
this He cannot but do eternally ; but it determines 
whether His love shall act upon our will and against 
it, or in and through it. For this we must choose — 
this every man does choose. 

And then how is it with all those w r ho choose the 
better way, and suffer Him to make their will an in- 
strument of His, their love a return to Him of His 
own love ? That it might be so, that it might come 
back to Him as their love, He gave it to them to be 
their very own, and they have this blessed conscious- 
ness. 

Still for them also, and for each one of them, the 
beginning determines the end. 

Now, let me ask two or three questions — Can you 
believe that all persons at death stand on precisely 
the same plane, and whether they be good or bad, 



THE BEGINNING DETERMINES THE END 49 

acquire at once the very same characters, and hold 
them forever ? This I would have you ask yourself 
thoughtfully, for there is indeed too much thought- 
lessness on this subject. I think you will answer, 
perhaps, after a little pause, No. 

Then can you believe that after a certain interval 
in the other world, all men, whatever they were here, 
acquire precisely the same characters, and hold them 
to eternity ? Again I think you will say, No. The 
conclusion is then inevitable, that in some way the 
beginning determines the end. The only question 
now possible is, in what way ? To answer this, we 
must look back to the laws of human nature, as we 
can discern them, and get from them whatever in- 
struction they can yield, and then bring our conclu- 
sion to the test of the Word of God. 

Then let me ask, Is anything more certain than 
that we see different persons in this world stand 
upon different planes of life, if I may so express it ? 
That is, some persons recognize truths of a distinctly 
higher character than others do, or yield themselves 
to the influence of distinctly higher motives. Or, to 
shape the question differently, Is not the kind of 
goodness of some persons distinctly higher than that 
of some others? Separate this question in your 
mind from that which refers to the quantity or meas- 
ure of goodness, such as it is. For example, do you 
not know people who, on a low or limited plane of 



50 THE POSSIBILITIES OF THIS LIFE 

life, or of thought and affection, are very kind, pure, 
and good ? And then do you not see others whose 
goodness is far less complete, who struggle with 
worse evil tendencies, and sometimes yield to them, 
and whose goodness and intelligence are therefore 
more broken and imperfect — but whose goodness, 
such as it is, is of a far higher kind ? 

Then remember that the Bible tells us that our 
works do follow with us, and that its whole instruc- 
tion tends to the conclusion that " as the tree falleth 
(or in whatever direction), so it lies." Then ask 
yourself, Is not that doctrine of our church probable 
and reasonable, which tells us that every one who 
lives to mature age in this w r orld, opens here some 
plane of his life ; that the Lord constantly helps all 
to rise from plane to plane, but that the need, the 
nature, and the use of this life, spring from the pos- 
sibility of rising while here, through conflict with sin 
and self, from plane to plane ; but that after we go 
to the other life, we have left this possibility behind 
us ? What then remains ? For our Father, with in- 
finite love and infinite wdsdom, to provide continu- 
ally throughout eternity, with no exception whatever, 
alike for the good and bad of all degrees, all means 
and methods by which each one may be enabled to 
have and may have all the completeness and all the 
happiness possible, on his or her self-determined 
plane of life, and this more and more forever — this 
always, but never more than this. 



WE CAN ACCEPT OR REJECT 51 

Remember, I am now appealing to your reason. 
I am asking you to do justice to your reason and to 
yourself. Our Father will offer us no other means 
or methods than those which it lies within our capac- 
ity, in our self-determined freedom, to accept and 
to use ; and I cannot but hold the belief, to me most 
precious, that if we do accept these means and use 
them, He will be the happier for us through eternity, 
and that even in our hands is placed what may be a 
portion of His happiness ! 

The disciples were told to give up father, and 
mother, and brother, and sister, and lands for His 
sake, and they should have an hundred fold more 
even in this life, with persecutions. They under- 
stood this literally, and obeyed it literally, and many 
suffered martyrdom. But even in this life they had 
their hundred fold. To us, to you, these things are 
said, but in an inner, an infinitely higher sense. 
You must obey them, if at all, in the way pointed out 
by that sense ; and if you strive to renounce for His 
sake what these things here represent and signify, 
you will have inner persecutions — persecutions from 
influences within you which seek to hold you back 
— doubts, fears, struggles, darkness, fainting hopes, 
and restless fears, which may be your martyrdom ; 
but even in this life you will have your hundred fold, 
and in the world to come "Eternal Life," — and 
what life ? 



52 A PERSONAL GOD 



To this end, that we may have this life, all His 
providences are active ; and most of all, that which 
closed and consummated the whole preceding series 
— when Jesus Christ was born. And from this Prov- 
idence, forward through all eternity, will radiate all 
the mercies of Infinite Mercy. All, however seem- 
ingly distant or different, converge in this — that we 
may accept Him who thus comes down to us ; that 
we may accept Him as God who thus comes down 
to be Immanuel, God with us ; who thus came down 
that He might ever stand before us, a personal God, 
an object of personal thought, obedience, trust, and 
worship ; one whom we may learn to love with the 
heart and soul, and whom we shall so love in the 
degree in which our eyes are opened to see His 
goodness, to see Him as He is, to see Him in His 
own revelation of Himself. 



COMMON-PLACE HIDDEN BEAUTIES 53 



IX 



THE delicate beauty of a winter landscape is 
something of which I can never grow weary. 
This afternoon is certainly not one which could be 
selected as remarkable in any way. It is a little too 
early for sunset glories, and I doubt if when that 
time comes there will be any brilliant color ; for, 
though the day has been a fine one, the sky for the 
last hour has been gradually overcast by a soft veil 
of that beautiful steel blue which harmonizes so per- 
fectly with a snowy landscape, and only in the south- 
west can one see a few clouds faintly blushing. But 
in some moods we take especial delight in trying to 
find the hidden beauties of the common and the in- 
significant. They are then more precious to us than 
those strikingly beautiful scenes which compel ad- 
miration from all. So in this upper world of steel 
blue, the lower one of white, with the fringes of black 
forest between, I find today a profound pleasure. 
I believe this little bit of egotism escaped me be- 
cause I have been re-reading your last letter — and 
from the way in which you speak of a beautiful sun- 



54 WHAT THE SUN TEACHES 

rise and sunset, I think you sympathize readily with 
nature in her various phases, and, having a keen 
eye for these, may get some idea of that which I 
have so faintly described. 

There is a difference in the tints of coloring at the 
sun's rising and setting which is not easily explained. 
I never saw what I should call a radiant dawn — not 
one like many of those sunsets which bring to the 
lips the word " glorious. " In the morning the eye 
and mind are waiting for the sunburst, and the sud- 
den flood of light almost effaces from the thought 
the earlier beauty of the clouds ; but the moment 
when the sun sinks out of sight, it has no such over- 
powering splendor. I have looked at the evening 
clouds of one of our golden sunsets, until it seemed 
to me that all over the sky — they most which were 
nearest to the sinking sun — they were greedily 
gathering all of his splendor that they could hold, 
to keep it while they could, giving it up slowly and 
reluctantly, clinging to the last pale tints, and finally 
yielding them up so sadly ! 

Much of the symbolism of all this is obvious. 
The turning of the earth to the sun always, through 
day and night, represents what should be the con- 
stant turning of every human mind towards the Lord. 
The earth seems to turn away from the sun that 
sinks, but it is to meet him in his coming ; and that 
should be our work in all our nights — for " the night 



WHAT THE CLOUDS TEACH 55 

cometh " to every man. For every spot of earth, it 
is day when it is turned to the sun, and night when 
it has turned away ; and this is precisely the same 
with the spiritual night and day of every soul. In 
the darkness we may sleep, for there need be no 
distress, but acquiescence and rest and hope ; for 
" He giveth His beloved sleep," that they may be 
strengthened to do His work when the light of his 
countenance shines on them again, as assuredly it 
will. 

The clouds represent certain thoughts or states of 
mind ; and these, however cold and dark at night, 
when the morning is coming they catch the light 
of the yet distant sun, and we read in their beauty 
the promise of day. At first it mingles with the 
darkness of a night not yet gone ; but at every 
moment it grows brighter with growing hope. And 
no wonder that when the whole day has run its 
course and night draws near, these clouds gather 
into their bosom all the radiance and glory of the 
day that they can hold, and cling to them while they 
can. I think we do, or should do, just the same 
thing. 

The love of nature is a gift for which those who 
possess it cannot be too grateful. How many a 
lonely hour does it fill with richest delights ! But I 
think you will understand me when I say that the 
love of the external of nature alone, is only a part 



5 6 THE SPIRITUAL EYE AND EAR 

of what I mean ; though many who have never had 
glimpses of the inner beauty would undoubtedly 
deny this, and are quite contented with the sensuous 
delight which the perfume and color of roses or the 
sweet voices of birds afford them. Let us think for 
a moment who tinted the rose, who created those 
lovely musical instruments. The very thought of 
Him, the loving and grateful thought of Him, will 
open the spiritual eye and ear. If we believe that 
He really created all from Himself, we are irresisti- 
bly led to the conclusion, that within this lovely 
outer vesture of things there must be a something 
higher and more spiritual — something flowing out 
from the Divine nature itself. This love of the 
beautiful, then, may become the seed of far higher 
happiness — the recipient vessel, the form, into which 
may be poured the abiding joy of seeing and know- 
ing all the spiritual beauty of which the outspread 
magnificence all about us is but the garment. Do 
you remember those lines of Faust in the invocation 
to nature, which opens the poem ? 

" And ever on the resounding loom of time, 
Thou weavest the Godhead's living garment." 

Perhaps, because I have quoted this poetry, you 
will accept what I have said before as poetry also, 
— mere poetical fancy ! And you are, at least in 
part, right. It is poetry ; it is taught us by our im- 



WHA T IMA GIN A TION IS 57 

agination ; but would that I could tell you what Poe- 
try is, what Imagination does. 

Did it never seem to you strange, that when Im- 
agination is the only human faculty which even they 
who desire most to brutalize man have never even 
conjectured that they found in t the slightest degree 
or under any guise in animals, that this purely 
human faculty should be given by his Creator to 
man alone, if its only function be to deceive, and its 
only work to fill our minds with fantasies and illu- 
sions ? It is not so. Poetry works with and it speaks 
to the imagination. And we owe it to the provident 
mercy of God, that in all ages poetry has been able 
to tell us through the imagination great and elevat- 
ing truths, which our reason, our reason as we have 
made it to be, would utterly reject. It is for this that 
poetry is given. Even in this dead age it insinuates 
into the mind, and into the affections, beautiful 
truths, which reason, while it scorns, is willing to 
admit, provided we call them imaginations ; and on 
no other terms would this reason, in its present con- 
dition, allow them any existence. 

Look into your own mind, and tell me if this is 
not true ? The beautiful suggestions of poetry are 
profound realities ; standing to the facts and knowl- 
edges of which reason and science are so proud, in 
the relation of soul to body. There is abundance 
of false poetry in the world, as there is of everything 



5^ REASON AND IMAGINATION 

else that is false. I speak only of true poetry. It 
is the misery of our times that reason is utterly ig- 
norant of its greatest power and highest work, and 
that science does not know that it has a soul. 

The time will come — and there are moments 
when the light flashing all around me, and beginning 
to illuminate the dark corners of what is called sci- 
ence and philosophy, lets me hope that it may come 
soon — when reason will call on imagination to do 
for truth what only imagination can ; and when im- 
agination will gladly come to reason for guidance, 
for rectification, for confirmation. Then, only then, 
will terminate this unhappy divorce between these 
two great human powers — human and finite in us ? 
but divine and infinite in Him from whom they come 
to us — coming always as we can become willing to 
receive from Him the gift of His own elements of 
life. 



WHAT HAPPINESS DEPENDS ON 59 



X. 



IN one of my letters I alluded to my neighbor 
with the weak eyes. This man has a genius for 
making the best of everything that really has a best 
in it, which is truly admirable. A medicine was 
prescribed for him lately, which he applied, and for 
one day experienced much relief ; but ever since has 
been so much worse, that one would think the tem- 
porary benefit would have been quite forgotten in 
the suffering afterwards. By no means ; he clings 
to the memory of that one day with a beautiful per- 
sistency, and will not be condoled with much on his 
present condition, without reverting to the " ray of 
brightness that the Loid did send him, before He 
let down the dark curtain again." 

There is a saying which must be as old as human 
experience, repeated ever since there were words to 
express it, and by everybody that ever lived, the 
truism of truisms, and yet almost powerless. It is, 
that putting positive pain and want aside, our hap- 
piness is dependent, not on external circumstances, 
but on internal condition. Why can we not remem- 



60 WHAT WISDOM TEACHES 

ber this? There is in one of Miss Evans's novels — 
Adam Bede, I think — a beautiful paragraph on the 
habit of everybody, of wishing eagerly, passionately, 
for some boon, some change of circumstance, which 
he must know, if all experience and observation are 
able to teach him anything, would, if it were granted, 
be inevitably followed by a new want, a new disap- 
pointment. Shall we, then, wish, hope for nothing 
passionately ? If this is what wisdom tells us, then 
it is the part of wisdom to destroy our best happi- 
ness — for does not that rest on hope ? Wisdom tells 
us something very different. It tells us we cannot 
wish too eagerly, strive too earnestly, hope too pas- 
sionately for that good thing which will change our 
inward condition. That change which will enlarge 
our capacity for abiding happiness, fill out and com- 
plete our life, strengthen our weakness, feed us with 
all good, satisfy the heart, not with quietude and 
rest, but with energy and strength for all usefulness, 
and so for all happiness — surely wisdom itself will 
tell us that we may wish for this with all our capac- 
ity of desire, and live in the joy of hope, if that be 
granted ! Live in this hope, and in the joy of this 
hope, let what will befall us. 

You know Church history is one of my favorite 
studies. In the early ages of Christianity I often 
find instances of this. There were martyrs upon 
whom ingenious cruelty did its worst. But their hope, 



TRUE MARTYRDOM 6 1 

their bounding and exulting hope, acted upon them 
with anaesthetic power — I do not believe they felt 
the flame or the rack. 

Martyrdom of that sort is at an end; but martyr- 
dom of another sort is still the law of Christian life. 
The ecstasy of joy in the midst of suffering has 
gone, too. But our martyrdom — the pains and 
stings of every day — may be borne with better 
patience, if such a wish and hope as I have above 
described be given us. 



62 HELPING EACH OTHER 



XI. 



THE only work I have to do for you is to help 
you to do your own work. Nor should I be 
deterred from doing what I can by the consciousness 
that all the assistance I can give you is so poor and 
imperfect, for it may possibly be the best that is 
now within your reach. Sometimes the earth seems 
to me like a great garden ; not the " garden of 
nature " that men talk of, but a garden where our 
good and evil tendencies are growing side by side. 
If, in the little patch of ground which is assigned to 
each, that plant called " Love of God " should be 
found, let it be most carefully nourished and watered ; 
let everything be done to help it to grow ; its flowers 
will be so much more beautiful than all the others 
that they will fully repay the gardener for his pains. 
There are not wanting instructions in this spiritual 
floriculture for those who will read them ; but often 
the Lord lets us help each other ; and if it be only 
a cup of cold water, or a bit of trellis for our precious 
plant to climb upon, coming at the right moment, it 
may preserve it from drought and death. 

Not long after my last letter I sent you a Life of 



ALL THINGS MADE NEW 63 

Swedenborg. I selected this because, besides the 
mere narrative part which would interest you, the 
writer speaks of Swedenborg's books, and, partly by 
extracts, partly by his own comments, endeavors to 
exhibit the leading doctrines. 

This is done abruptly, without the aid of the mu- 
tual illustration they give each other, and sometimes 
inaccurately ; but I thought, in spite of these de- 
fects, you could from this book gain a general view 
of the whole, which might afterwards be both recti- 
fied and enlarged by study of the details. Let me 
beg you to remember two or three things. First, 
that you study these things to become more free, not 
to be bound ; to be taught and led, not to be com- 
manded and coerced. Remember, too, Swedenborg 
has none of the character or authority of inspira- 
tion. Nothing would he have disclaimed more. 
Again, what he teaches is a new and universal sys- 
tem of thought. There are two reasons why this 
must present many and great difficulties. The first 
is its absolute novelty. It presents to the mind a 
new way of believing and thinking about everything. 
Nor is this all ; for if it be received in any degree, 
in that degree it must change our mode of thought. 
And you will see that this implies not merely the re- 
ception of the new, but, to make that reception pos- 
sible, the casting away of the old. And this is some- 
times a cause of great pain. The second cause of 



64 KEEP THE MIND FREE AND OPEN 

difficulty is the boundless extent and measureless 
magnitude of many of the truths he tells. The effect 
of this is that, to some minds, many of these seem 
at first utterly incomprehensible. Yet the preven- 
tion of difficulty or embarrassment from either or 
both of these causes is easy and effectual. 

Determine resolutely not to be embarrassed by 
them. How, you may ask, shall you accomplish 
this ? Very easily. Cultivate a due respect for 
Swedenborg's marvellous ability, and for his most 
extraordinary means of knowledge. Acknowledge 
and reverence the ends for which he was so taught. 
But, if you do not understand what you read, remem- 
ber that the truth which may be there is not truth 
for you at that time. Keep your mind free and open, 
and there is always abundance to understand and 
rejoice in. Let this be your habit, and you will be 
surprised to find how this freedom and ease of mind 
will often make things quite clear, will often give 
you at least beautiful glimpses and dawnings of 
truth, when, if the mind were disturbed or oppressed, 
everything would be dark and confused. 



WE ARE LIABLE TO BE MISTAKEN 65 



XII. 

LAST Sunday I wrote to guard you from em- 
barrassment at finding, in the course of read- 
ing you have undertaken, things which you cannot 
now understand. Let me now speak of what may 
sometimes happen. You will understand a para- 
graph, or think that you do, and be wholly unable to 
receive it. What are you to do then ? I answer as 
before, Be tranquil ; let it alone ; do not come too 
hastily to the conclusion that your author is mis- 
taken, for at a later time you might perhaps discover 
that you did not understand him aright, or that you 
did understand him and were yourself mistaken. 

Swedenborg is peculiarly open to misconstruction, 
not so much about doctrines, as in his relations of 
what he saw in the spiritual world, from this cause, 
namely, that there the appearance of things is 
greatly affected and almost determined by the char- 
acter of the observer. Something of this is true 
even here. Perhaps nothing appears as precisely 
the same thing to one person that it does to another. 
Suppose a kingdom in this world, where there are 



66 DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW 

wise laws affecting the minutest conduct of every 
man, admirably adapted to give to all who obey them 
the largest comfort and enjoyment of which they are 
capable, and for their own sake carrried into full and 
constant force by observant and inexorable justice 
and irresistible power, so as to produce the greatest 
amount of quiet enjoyment with the minimum of 
coercion and punishment. To some people this 
would seem to be a very heaven upon earth. To 
others, the absolute absence of freedom would make 
it a hell. 

Now this difference of aspect, according to dif- 
ference of character, is carried infinitely further in 
the spiritual world than here. 

Swedenborg often speaks of those in hell, and of 
their surroundings — exactly suited to them, as are 
all surroundings in the spiritual world — as they are 
seen in the light of truth, or as the angels see them. 
And the picture is horrible enough. And passages 
of this sort would be selected by one whose sympa- 
thies with the old notions of divine vengeance and 
eternal punishment led him to prefer this view of 
hell. But it is the constant statement of Sweden- 
borg that those who are in hell appear to themselves, 
and to each other, what they would love to appear 
and to see — and so it is with their surroundings. 
And in all his Relations, it must be remembered 
that all external things in the spiritual world sym- 



SWEDENBORG'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 67 

bolize and represent internal things, not merely in 
general, as on earth, but with particular adaptation 
to individuals. Most of his Relations refer to the 
world of spirits, which is a purely transitional con- 
dition, and where all things fluctuate, appear, disap- 
pear, and change almost like the scenes of a drama ; 
while in the heavens, where character is fixed and 
determined, there is in the external world of the 
angels far more permanence and seeming reality in 
the substance of things than in this changeful world, 
while hues and forms, and light and shade, change 
with inexhaustible variety, to represent the changes 
of state in a life of constant development. 

It is said to be the test of a true system of philos- 
ophy, that no part of it can be understood except in 
the light of all the rest. Never was this more true 
than of Swedenborg's philosophy of religion — or 
religion of philosophy. They may be called which 
you will, for with him there can be no true religion 
which is not philosophical, no true philosophy which 
is not religious. 



68 A SUGGESTIVE SCENE 



XIII. 

THIS afternoon I ascended a hill at no great 
distance from my house, which I had not vis- 
ited before, and on reaching the top was amazed at 
the extent and loveliness of the prospect. Expect- 
ing little from so slight an ascent, it seemed as if 
" all the kingdoms of the world " were spread before 
me. It was very beautiful to see so many miles of 
God's fair earth all clad in the perfection of mid- 
summer garments ; and at first the pure delight of 
the eye banished any definite thought. But after 
each part of the picture had been sought out and en- 
joyed, the village at my feet nestled in dark green 
trees, the meadows dotted with haycocks and here 
and there a mower — seen from my point of view 
only as a red spot — the clear blue river, the sunny 
upland slopes and the lovely blue hills, growing 
softer and bluer in the distance — then came again 
the thought of that mountain where Satan tempted 
our Lord ; and if the scene had been no lovelier 
than this which met my eye, if the offer of absolute 
power had been only over the few villages which my 



OUR LORD'S TEMPTATIONS 69 

hill-top commanded, what a temptation might not 
that have been ! 

The subject of our Lord's temptations is too sacred 
and mysterious to be lightly approached — almost 
too sacred to be approached at all ; but one passage 
of your last letter, as it perhaps suggested the 
thought I have above expressed, so it induces me to 
offer to you a few thoughts about it, because it seems 
to me that you are in an obscurity which I may be 
able to illuminate, though perhaps very faintly. 

We are told, " He was tempted in all points as 
we are " ; and this you must remember does not 
mean merely as you are tempted, or as I am tempted, 
for numberless germs or possibilities of evil exist in 
us which may never rise to assail us, and there are 
other people who have foes to deal with quite differ- 
ent from those from which we pray daily for deliver- 
ance. All the terrible and infinitely varied tempta- 
tions of all men assailed Him. The German artist, 
Moritz Retsch, has drawn in vivid outlines the strug- 
gles of angels and demons for the mastery over a 
human soul ; yet when the dark hour of our own 
conflict comes to us, the picture seems a dim and 
feeble presentation of our own struggles and tor- 
ments. Would it not help us in that hour, if, remem- 
bering that all this, and infinitely more, was suffered 
by our Lord, the unspeakably consoling thought 
should also come — and yet He conquered ? 



70 HIS ANSWER — "IT IS WRITTEN" 

Then by a patient reading, and oft re-reading, of 
the story, may we come at last to see — to see here 
very faintly, but hereafter more perfectly — how He 
conquered. I will give you one of the thoughts 
which came to me about it today. There are three 
words : " It is written.'' Did it ever occur to you 
that the only answers made by the Lord, when 
tempted by the Devil, were " It is written " so or so. 
And always the answers thus found in the Word 
overcome the Devil. 

The temptations of our Lord in the desert were 
symbolical, nor could they have happened literally. 
But they symbolize all the temptations He endured 
in the whole of His life on earth, and therefore all 
that we can endure ; and His answers symbolize the 
means of His constant victories. Remember that 
temptations can be undergone only by those who are 
striving to be better. They are combats, and only 
they resist sin who would escape from sin. 

The first temptation symbolizes all that vast class 
of feelings which, when we are worn and wearied 
with our efforts to attain the spiritual truth for which 
we so hunger, tempts us to give up the effort — to 
be content with this world and what it offers, and to 
find in its very stones, where no life is, all the bread 
we want. If we yield, we have momentary comfort ; 
if, yielding still more, we absolutely decline to make 
further effort for better things, we fall into natural- 



HO W WE CAN BE SA VED 7 1 

ism and worldliness. But if we resist, it is because 
we remember that we can live only by the bread of 
God — only by the words He has given us to lead 
us to Himself. 

None are in this world wholly free from this temp- 
tation ; but even when we are most free from this, 
it is then that we are assailed by a new temptation. 
We think we have conquered, are ascending, are 
strong — that we stand on the pinnacle of the tem- 
ple, and are safe ; for even if we cast ourselves down, 
have not His angels charge to save us ? Ah ! sor- 
rowful and woful condition ; and our fancied strength 
turns to weakness now. Yet may not those most 
beautiful, blessed words in Revelation have been 
spoken to us, " To him that overcometh will I give 
to eat of the tree of life " ? And here we can over- 
come if we remember that we must not tempt the 
Lord our God — that we must not forget that to the 
highest and lowest of His children He gives His 
law, His truth ; and that constant and humble obe- 
dience to that law, constant and humble care not to 
offend, is the condition on which His angels can 
save us. 

And then will come, and it comes in myriads of 
forms, the last and deepest temptation. It is that 
we love our goodness and our wisdom for ourselves, 
and the greatness and superiority they give us, and 
the pleasant consciousness that we are not as other 



72 THE POWER OF GOD'S WORD 

men are ; and not that they may make us more per- 
fectly His instruments, and the servants of His will. 
And here, too, we are saved, if we remember that 
we must worship, not ourselves, but " the Lord our 
God, and Him only shall we serve." " Thy will, 
not our will." 

These are the most general forms of all tempta- 
tions ; and the lesson with regard to this parable 
which has come to me today, and which I have 
shared with you, is that against every temptation 
we may find sufficient answer, and in every danger 
sufficient defence, in the Word of God. 



IN HARMONY WITH NATURE 73 



XIV. 

YOU say that you find it "quite impossible to 
live in the country and not fill your letters with 
gossip of woods and birds and streams," and fear 
that I will "be tired of it." Instead of tiring, my 
dear friend, it rests me — I mean it gives me a rest- 
ful feeling about you ; it must be that your mind is 
at peace, when you can feel in harmony with God's 
innocent creation which we call nature. 

I can quite sympathize, too, with your pleasure in 
telling of the impressions which you are constantly 
receiving from this beautiful nature. Long as I 
have lived in the country, I have not outlived this 
pleasure ; and it is particularly delightful to send to 
some imprisoned city friend a stray leaf from this 
book of bright pictures painted by a Divine Hand. 
Pausing for a moment only, leaving myself, my 
cares and anxieties, I have only to glance from my 
window, and dark indeed must be the mood which 
would not be arrested, at least, by the bright mid- 
summer picture outside. And even if one cannot 
look, the murmuring brook is always telling about it 



74 HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS TO BE ALIVE 

in its own gentle way, monotonous perhaps, but 
never tedious, and with an unobtrusiveness which is 
all the more touching when one thinks what a story 
it is which the brook has to tell. 

But you are now in the mountains, and have begun 
already to learn from them as well as to enjoy them. 
It seems to me that mountain-tops have sometimes 
an effect which is a strange blending of exhilaration 
and tranquillization — a simple joyousness in being, 
and a sense of calm gladness in being lifted so far 
above the mists and cares of earth. I am speaking 
of quite high mountain-tops, where the landscape 
underneath is too distant to be distracting. Does 
not this represent the normal state of man, expelled 
afterwards by the glooms and anxieties which we 
permit to fill our minds ? Is not the only needful 
thing to cast these out ? For then we need not seek 
for joy — it would return of itself, as to its rightful 
home. The soul has its mountain-tops, and climbs 
up thither to be alone with God. "I will flee unto 
the hills from whence cometh my help." " His 
foundation is in the holy mountains." In these high 
solitudes the soul finds a refuge when all else has 
failed ; and the beautiful spiritual sense of these 
words — their soul — comes to us. Yet these are 
not our home, nor is it in God's order to dwell apart 
from our fellow men. In the valleys and plains be- 
low, our work is to be done, and when we stand on 



FROM THE MOUNTAIN TO THE VALLEY 75 

a mountain-top of thought or feeling, it may be that 
we shall be called down by some woful disappoint- 
ment, some stinging calamity — called down to our 
hard work, inner or outer, there where it must be 
done. Ah, well ! let us answer the call — let us 
descend ; but while we are up there let us try, by 
grateful and earnest recognition of our Father's love, 
to strengthen our trust in Him, to strengthen our- 
selves for the work to which disappointment or 
calamity may be sent to guide us ! Nor is it an un- 
kind Providence which bids us descend from our 
mountains. The air there is too thin to breathe ; 
soon the solitude, at first so charming, would grow 
irksome. From the heights we can bring down new 
vigor for old duties, and recollections and lessons 
which will make us more useful than we could have 
been before. 

The mountains and hills drink the " dew of the 
morning," and gather from the clouds their benefi- 
cent rains, and a thousand streamlets pour down 
their sides. Remember that water, everywhere and 
universally, in all its forms and functions and laws, 
corresponds to truth in the intellect. When we 
climb to mountain and hill states, then, if we are but 
ready for the blessing, thoughts and truths which 
had floated through our understanding like clouds, 
or were as invisible as the dew, come down to us 



7 6 



ABOVE AND BELOW 



and we may hold them. And what becomes of 
them, or what may become of them ? 

See those streamlets gliding along in their pure 
and stainless beauty, singing their songs of gladness. 
Downwards they go, and form the streams and swell 
the rivers which invigorate and help to make habi- 
table the levels far below. But how often, when 
they get there, they are stained, and sad, and slug- 
gish ! 



WHY SUPERNATURALISM IS ASSAILED 77 



XV. 

IN the French book I sent you the other day, did 
you notice how hardly the author was pressed to 
find eminent men whom he could cite to prove his 
position, that intellectual power and cultivation were 
not incompatible with sincere belief? Under one 
point of view I lament this ; under another there is 
hope in it. 

It is one of the marvellous signs of the times that 
all the forces of reason, logic, and science seem to 
be permitted to assail supernaturalism with irresisti- 
ble force. This is permitted in this age for the first 
time in the history of man. And the reason is that 
now men may find a refuge there, where none was 
ever opened to them before. In the closest reason- 
ing, in the severest logic, in all scientific processes, 
if only there be thrown on these the light of new 
truths — utterly unknown to past ages — the most 
exact thinkers may find evidence and certainty. I 
fear this will seem to you a strong assertion ; but it 
is literally true. I do most distinctly believe that 
the truths now revealed concerning the nature of 
God and His relation to the universe, the nature of 



78 THE WORD OF GOD THE BATTLE-GROUND 

spiritual being and its relation to the material world 
outside of it, the nature of the soul and its relation 
to the body, and the methods and purposes of God 
in creating and sustaining man, are able to bring to 
a rational mind undoubting conviction and positive 
certainty that man begins to live in this world and 
never ceases to live, and never ceases to have a 
world about him adapted to him. But what proof 
have we of these truths ? Their own light — the 
proof we have at noon-day of the sun's existence. 

The assailants of supernaturalism find in the 
" Word " of God their great battle-ground ; and I 
have spoken to you before in some of my letters of 
these controversies, and the reason of their being 
permitted in these days as never before, because the 
freedom of thought which must once have been 
utterly disastrous, may now, in the new light which 
our Father has given through His servant, Sweden- 
borg, lead to the most beautiful results. 

When we first know that there is a spiritual sense 
to the Word, to every part of it, and that our Church 
reveals this sense, we look for it perhaps hungrily, 
and are disappointed when we find so little that we 
can clearly discern ; nor is it impossible that we may 
be too persistent in our search, and make an effort 
which not only disappoints but retards us. Yet, 
after awhile, we learn to see a few things distinctly, 
and many more things dimly, yet gladly — I say 



HOW OUR FATHER SPEAKS TO US 79 

dimly, but I rather mean generally. And as our 
knowledge grows we learn that the spiritual sense is 
not a new language into which the old words are to 
be translated, but new light, new significance, new 
precision, and appropriateness to our own wants. 
We feel that this is infinite and inexhaustible ; and 
that, as we go upwards, we shall see forever more 
clearly that it is the Word of God, and what that 
Word says to us. 

Without losing our enjoyment of what we see, we 
lose the painful feeling that we see nothing because 
we see so little. We receive and recognize without 
effort and without struggle what comes to us, and it 
is all the more welcome. The sermons we hear, the 
books we read, tell us the meaning of these or those 
texts, and gradually accumulating a stock of such 
meanings, we shall be sure to find other texts com- 
ing within the light we have thus obtained. 

We cannot doubt that our Father has countless 
ways of speaking to His children. Through all the 
voices of nature He speaks ; there is not the faint- 
est whin of insect-life in which we should not hear 
the Divine accents, if we would only listen for them. 
He speaks to us through the eye still more power- 
fully ; and not the smallest event of every-day life 
but may be to us a lesson, an exhortation from the 
Father of Light. Yet the Holy Scriptures are none 
the less emphatically His Word — a word worth infi- 



80 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANIMALS AND MAN 

nitely more than all human words ever uttered ; and 
though this Divine Word must yet come down to us 
through human means, though much in this way 
may have been darkened and obscured, we have an 
assured faith that the truth itself not only remains 
forever secured to us — a precious heritage — but a 
faith, too, that God has now sent us that illumina- 
tion which will drive away the thick clouds and 
darkness. 

I am sure you see plainly that infinite wisdom 
could be communicated to finite intellects only by 
some method of accommodation. This is only an- 
other way of saying that the Divine energy can make 
a tree grow and pass through its circle of life only 
by means of organs perfectly adapted to this pur- 
pose, the soft coverings which infold the germ, the 
drinking and breathing apparatus of rootlets and 
leaves. So only could it give to animals their life ; 
so only can it give life to man, or, better, so only 
can it be in man, human life. And that man may 
be man, he has a physical organization which in- 
cludes the vegetable and the animal, and then an 
affectional and intellectual organization into which 
Divine love and wisdom may flow, becoming human 
affection and human reason — while through this 
whole scale of being, from the absolute divinity at 
the summit, down to the fixed matter of our earth, 
the energy is always the same, the laws of its action 



THE MEANING OF JACOB'S LADDER 8 1 

are always the same, and its effects on one plane of 
being correspond to those on other planes of being. 

You remember Jacob's dream : " Jacob was in 
Beth-el (the House of God) and he dreamed; and 
behold a ladder set up on the earth ; and the top of 
it reached to heaven ; and behold the angels of God 
ascending and descending upon it. And behold the 
Lord stood above it." This ladder is the Word. In 
all ages, among the Jews as among the Christians, 
there have been those who were too deeply pene- 
trated with the belief of its sanctity and divinity to 
rest contented with supposing it to have no other 
meaning than that which rests on the ground. Oh, 
how they have labored to find the ascending steps 
of the ladder ! But they have been able to see it 
only as a dream ; only as Jacob saw it. Now, how- 
ever, we are permitted (and if we will, we may be 
instructed) to see it with our waking reason ; to see 
it, not as a mere dream fabric, but as a reality, rest- 
ing on a foundation solid as earth itself, and ascend- 
ing by steps built of the very substance of truth, and 
arranged in their places by the laws of infinite wis- 
dom. What multitudes have stood on the lower 
rounds, seeing no more, but with eye and soul look- 
ing and longing for more. When they pass into the 
next world will not such mount up, and ever up- 
wards ? 

The angels of God ascend and descend perpetu- 



82 



ITS BEGINNING AND ITS END 



ally upon it. You know that " angels " means " mes- 
sengers/' and all good influences come down to us 
along its steps and arise with us if we will only go 
up with them. How unspeakably grateful should 
they be who are now permitted to see, not its whole 
extent, but many of its steps, and to be sure that its 
foundation cannot fail, and that its summit is in 
Heaven. 






WHAT RELIGION IS 83 



XVI. 

I READ and re-read all that you told me about 
your two Sunday sermons, and I thought I could 
see plainly why you were so much more at home 
in the afternoon. There was some religion there. 
Never have I felt so strongly, never seen so clearly 
as of late, that the difference between forms or modes 
of religion is not so important and so vital as the 
difference between any true, heartfelt religion, and 
none ; and in feeling this, we lose care for the differ- 
ence in forms, or even in faiths, except as one is bet- 
ter able than another to feed whatever hunger for re- 
ligion we may have, and to give us the bread of life 
as nothing else could. What is religion, but to know, 
to worship, and to love God — for from a true love to 
Him springs all love of goodness, and therefore all 
happiness. But we must know and love Him as our 
Father ; and what can be more plain than that we 
can have no such love except for a person ? And 
where, but in the truths which He has now given us, 
can we find that knowledge of Him, of His nature, 
of His work, of His own inconceivable love for us, 



84 WHAT TRUTH IS 

which makes our faith unwavering, our thoughts dis- 
tinct, and, if worldliness or selfishness do not para- 
lyze our hearts, fills them full — full of love for Him 
who loves us so. 

Do not think, however, that by this last sentence 
I would confine all religion to those who accept the 
same truths which I accept ; or, in other words, that 
in dividing all men into two classes, I put those who 
belong to the New Church in one, and all the rest of 
humanity in the other. There is a marked line of 
division, an almost indefinable yet never absent 
distinction between New-Church and Old-Church 
people, which I will not here enlarge upon ; but 
most certainly I would be the last one to say that 
this distinction existed because on one side they 
were religious and the others were not. Not in the 
least. Many of them have much religion, more than 
either you or I have ; but their religion suits them ; 
and because it would not suit or help us, our Father 
has given us our own. There is, however, a deeper 
view to be taken of this subject. All truth known 
to man is but as a few drops from an exhaustless 
fountain, or rather from an infinite ocean ; for it is 
an efHuence from Infinite Wisdom. This Wisdom, 
you know, is one with Infinite Love, and He in 
whom it is, desires to give it to us as largely and as 
freely as possible. But it can come only gradually, 
only in its own order, step by step. Then what fol- 



WHY IT IS GIVEN TO US 85 

lows ? Every truth given us is given for two pur- 
poses — one, that it may pour its light upon the 
mind, and bring our thoughts into the order and 
clearness belonging to that truth, and kindle our 
affection for the truth itself and for the good of 
which it is the instrument, and make this affection 
warm and permanent. And the second purpose it 
accomplishes by doing just this first work ; for this 
second purpose is, to open our minds to higher 
truths. Hence two things — first, to every age, and 
nation, and individual, that truth is given which is 
best for him or her, in that state ; and the other 
thing is, that only by holding fast, by loving and liv- 
ing that truth, do we make ourselves receptive of 
more and higher truth. This we can do, and unless 
we do it, it cannot be done. 

A man may live in a dungeon and not know that 
it is dark, because he neither knows nor cares to 
know what light is. Many live so. Or he may live 
in a broken or diffused light, and be content there- 
with, because he does not know that there is a sun, 
nor wish to know it. And upon him the sunshine 
is never permitted to fall, because it would blind 
him with excess of light. But if he was once sure 
that there was a sun, and that its glory was all 
around him and everything, seeking to enter at 
every crevice, now perhaps he would try to open the 
shutters of his mind and let the sunshine in. He 



86 THE MATERIAL EYE SEES NOTHING 

might seek to do this, and strive and moan because 
he could not. For whether he could or not would 
depend entirely upon what he desired the sunshine 
for ; and what he would do with it when he got it ; 
for it might be to him a curse ! Here seems to me 
to be the key to the whole providence of God in the 
divine dispensation of truth to the world in every 
age, and always to every individual. 

The other day I was reading a most eloquent ac- 
count of the marvellous display of Divine Wisdom 
in so perfectly adjusting the eye to light, as it comes 
to earth and exists here with infinite differences as 
to place, and season, and hour ; and so adjusting 
the sun, the source of all light, to the eye, that a 
healthy human eye and sunlight are exactly made 
for each other. When — I thought as I read this — 
when will it be as well known, and as readily ad- 
mitted as a part of familiar knowledge, that this out- 
side adjustment, exquisite as it is, is but the effect, 
presentation, and symbol of the inner adjustment 
between the mind's eye and the mind's light. Often 
have I found it a most startling thing to say, that 
the spiritual eye is an organ perfectly clothed by the 
material eye, filling exactly every part of it, giving 
life to it, and in that way giving sight to that natural 
organ, which without it can no more see than a 
stone, or than it can when death has taken away 
this spiritual organ. Oh ! that either you or I could 



WHY TRUTH MAKES SLOW PROGRESS 87 

put the millionth part of its true value on the truth 
— the light — given to us ! 

When I think of the truths themselves, when I see 
them offering the solution of the problems which vex 
the human mind, giving to the wandering feet some 
guidance, and to the sad heart hope and faith and 
joy, I wonder that the whole world does not welcome 
them. But when I think of existing character as I 
suppose it to be in others and know it to be in my- 
self, then am I astonished that they have made any 
impression on mankind. 

To return for a moment to my man in a dun- 
geon : it is not desire, not even intense desire for 
truth that brings it — but a desire of such kind, and 
on such grounds, as to indicate that if it be received 
it will be so loved and used as to make it well that 
it should be received. Do you remember the words, 
" Verily I say unto you, that many prophets and 
righteous men have desired to see those things which 
ye see and have not seen them and to hear those 
things which ye hear and have not heard them " ? 
They were prophets and righteous men. They 
longed for truth. Why was it not given them ? You 
will see, I think, that if we push this inquiry to its 
legitimate extent, it becomes the question why man 
at the beginning of his existence is not taught by 
Infinite Love all of the Infinite Wisdom that he is 
willing to ask for and to hear. And you see at once 



88 EACH ONE HAS THE TRUTH HE NEEDS 

that now you ask why man is not made just what 
man is not. The universal answer is, every living 
person is always within reach of all the truth he 
needs — all which he can receive without wasting 
it, idling with it, subjecting it to his own self-intelli- 
gence, or so perverting it that it becomes a mischief 
and not a blessing. All this wrong we may do with 
what is given us to be our own, but it would not 
have been given to us unless we might have done 
better. 



WORLDLINESS AGAIN 89 



XVII. 

NOT long ago, I wrote you a letter about world- 
liness ; but you must not imagine that the 
subject is exhausted. No, even in my comparative 
seclusion, I feel continually its influence ; and again 
and yet again it forces itself upon me as a painful 
subject of consideration. The immediate reason for 
my writing about it today is, perhaps, because I 

have just been reading a letter from Mr. -, an 

old friend, who after a faithful service of many years 
has just resigned an important office in the ministry. 
Several motives led him to this resignation ; but the 
strongest seems to have been an overpowering sad- 
ness at the condition of the society into which he 
was necessarily thrown. He writes : " It is not that 
I see everywhere a worldliness that is positive and 
offensive, but I do find a worldliness which is utterly 
'without God in the world/ Men, old and young, 
are for the most part good men, doing their duty 
satisfactorily, and meeting me with kindness ; but 
seldom, very seldom, do I detect a motive, a thought, 
or feeling, or hear an expression which indicates that 
this life is valued chiefly for its relation to another. 
It is not good to live always in such an atmosphere. " 



90 ALL IS VANITY, BUT TO LOVE GOD 

When the thought flashes upon us (for it comes, 
and alas ! it is gone, like summer lightning), that in 
a short time we shall begin a life which will not end, 
and that the whole of its character and condition 
must depend on the preparation for that life which 
we make in this world, what grievous calamity should 
we dread so much as that worldliness which puts 
upon our very souls the seal of death. A day or 
two since, in " The Imitation of Christ," I met with 
this line : " Vanitas, omne est vanitas, praeter amare 
Deum." "Vanity, all is vanity, but to love God." 
It is the common saying of all ascetic writings ; but, 
as they understood it, it involved a great mistake — 
for they thought that this world stood, not merely 
with worldly men, but necessarily, and of its own 
nature, in absolute antagonism to heaven. Formerly 
I regarded the maxim, I suppose, only in its ascetic 
meaning, and therefore as only partially true ; yet 
now it seems to me the truest thing that can be said 
— perfectly and absolutely true. For in this very 
world, God dwells. He so governs and shapes all 
the circumstances of life, that if we use them aright 
we may draw near to Him here, and prepare to be 
near Him in the Forever after. He longs for our 
love — our love, which is so feeble and faint, and 
yet so precious in His sight when we give it to Him 
freely. And why does He so desire it ? Ah ! I 
have told you many times before, and yet we cannot 



WHEN FREEDOM BEGINS 91 

too often remember it, that it is because, if we love 
Him, He can make us supremely happy. All that 
belongs to us or occurs to us in this life, is so or- 
dered that we may find in it the means of putting 
far from us those obstructions of evil which prevent 
us from seeing Him as He is, and as He has re- 
vealed Himself to us ; for if we did but so see Him, 
how could we fail to love Him with the whole heart 
and soul ? All is vanity but to love God. But when 
we understand Him and His Providence, we shall 
love Him in all the activities and duties of life, and 
in all innocent enjoyments which we gratefully ac- 
cept as His gifts. 

Swedenborg says something like this : " The only 
place where we can overcome worldliness is in the 
world." Hence necessity drives almost all into it; 
and it calls upon us so enticingly, or so imperatively, 
that solitary life is almost impossible. We cannot 
resist this necessity; on this point we have little 
freedom. Our freedom begins when the question 
comes, What use will we make of this world ? And 
the answer involves an awful responsibility. 



92 ESAU AND JACOB 



XVIII. 

YOU ask me to explain to you the early ver- 
ses of the sixty-third chapter of Isaiah, about 
Edom. In a page or two I can only give you hints 
for you to work out, but I will try to do that. " Esau 
is Edom," as we are told in Genesis xxxvi. i. Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob represent the three degrees 
of life — heavenly, spiritual, and natural. Esau, the 
brother of Jacob, also represents the natural. But 
Esau represents natural good, and the whole history 
of Esau is a wonderful picture of what merely nat- 
ural good is and does in our poor human nature. 
If we read the book of Genesis simply as an histori- 
cal narrative, without attaching to it any spiritual 
symbolism, I think we cannot always understand 
why the Divine approval and blessing should have 
been given to Jacob, and why Esau should be so 
condemned ; in fact, our sympathies are often with 
Esau. Because the good that was in him was natu- 
ral good, for that very reason we can understand 
and admire it more readily as good ; for it is like 
our own. How often do we form similar judgments 
of the friends and acquaintances who are about us ! 
Esau took possession of Mount Seir, and when 



THE MEANING OF EDOM 93 

his descendants possessed the whole range of moun- 
tains running south from near the Dead Sea to the 
head of the Red Sea (the Gulf of Akaba), they gave 
to the whole country Esau's name of " Edom." In 
the Word, this always represents natural good under 
one or other of its aspects ; and, as this when only 
natural and selfish is bad as bad can be, the denun- 
ciations against Edom in the prophets are terrible. 
But there often occur passages in which are intima- 
tions that it may be redeemed and delivered — as in 
Amos ix., 1 ith and 12th verses : " In that day will I 
raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and 
close up the breaches thereof ; and I will raise up 
his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old : 
That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of 
all the heathen which are called by my name, saith 
the Lord that doeth this." Also in Psalm cviii. 10: 
" Who will bring me into the strong city, who will 
lead me into Edom ? " Sometimes Edom is men- 
tioned with direct reference to our Lord ; and then 
it always means His human nature — as in the pas- 
sage you refer to. " He cometh from Edom mighty 
to save." He cometh and worketh for us in His 
assumed humanity to be our Saviour, as was in no 
other way possible. Garments dyed (literally dyed 
red), are truths warm and bright with love. " Glo- 
rious in His apparel " is, glorious in the truth He 
reveals. When you read the third and fourth ver- 
ses, remember that the vengeance, wrath, and fury 



94 HOW WE CAN TAKE A STEP FORWARD 

of the Lord are only the aspects His love bears to 
those who stand in utter hostility to Him. He can- 
not be anything but the eternally loving and mer- 
ciful Father ; but we, alas ! wrapped in the dark 
clouds of our own evil passions, see not beyond 
them. We do not go out of ourselves, and this poor, 
distorted image of self is reflected everywhere, till 
the Father's smile becomes to us a frown of wrath ! 
"There was none to uphold, therefore mine own 
arm brought salvation." There was nothing, noth- 
ing in the human nature He came to regenerate, that 
could help him. So it is with the Edom which be- 
longs to us — to you and to me. But you may ask, 
How then can it be true that we may cooperate with 
Him in every step ? And more than that, even He 
cannot lead us forward one step, unless we do co- 
operate. Is not this one of the distinguishing doc- 
trines of our Church ? Most certainly. Evil as we 
are, He can open our hearts to His influence, and 
does in childhood and infancy as well as youth and 
age, in myriads of ways, and then He can offer to 
our acceptance His own strength. He does all that 
may be done to induce us to accept it ; all that is 
consistent with our perfect freedom to reject it. If 
we do receive this strength from God and use it to 
work with Him, then indeed we take a step forward, 
and by this we acquire the possibility of receiving 
more strength, in which we may advance another 
step — and this forever and ever. 



THE ONE THING LACKING 95 



XIX. 

YOU are much grieved and perplexed at the 
trials and consequent depression into which 

your excellent young friend L has fallen. I am 

grieved, too, to hear of her depression (and yet that 
may, perhaps, soon be mended), but not to hear of 
the trials — although this may sound to you cold 
and unsympathetic to the last degree. But, remem- 
ber who sends these troubles. Your friend was full 
of natural goodness — that goodness of which I 
spoke to you in a recent letter ; she was kind and 
amiable, generous and patient, and yet lacked one 
essential. She did not look to the Lord, nor ac- 
knowledge in Him the constant Giver of all her 
pleasant possessions ; among others of her sweet 
and equable temper, which endeared her so much 
to those about her. With an appearance of humil- 
ity which was deceptive even to herself, she in 
fact prided herself much on her Christian graces ; 
more especially when they were applauded by those 
about her — for she was exquisitely sensitive to 
human opinion. So much faith had she in those 



96 THE PREVALENCE OF SELFISHNESS 

poor, short-sighted, human judgments, that a harsh 
sentence, even from one whom she might know to 
be utterly incompetent to form any just opinion 
whatever, would be a sudden blight ; yet soon the 
praises of others would reinstate her in the happy 
condition of self-satisfaction. 

Yet as gleams of truth come to us all sometimes 
athwart the clouds in which we wrap ourselves, so 

L exclaimed to me one day, in what seemed 

like a prophecy of that which has now come : " Some 
calamity must one day befall me ! Nothing short of 
this will ever bring me to God. I believe I really 
hardly care for Him at all. I do love my fellow- 
men, and I care so much more for the praise of men 
than the praise of God." " 

How much of that which we deem benevolence 
or philanthropy, is so mixed with selfishness that 
hardly any virtue is left in it. We love our equals 
and dear friends because they give us love and sym- 
pathy, even if for no baser motive ; and if these 
gifts were withdrawn should we still love ? Our 
kindly feelings towards the poor and dependent are 
too often sustained and kept alive by the flattery 
which we receive from them. 

Nothing is more difficult than to look upon trials 
and persecutions as blessings ; and though some 
would confess it to be true with a partial belief, 
others might altogether laugh at such a paradox. 



JOY AND SORROW ADAPTED TO OUR NEEDS 97 

When we ourselves are the " victims, " as we call 
it, it is harder than ever to accept the chastisement 
as a token of love ; but when others are afflicted, 
we are sometimes able to see the great benefit ac- 
cruing to them from their afflictions. This selfish 
clearness of vision could not be yours with regard to 
your friend, whom you loved too dearly to see her 
sufferings unmoved. Nor would I ask you to be un- 
moved, but only to be filled with a perfect assur- 
ance of God's love for her, and also to believe in 
the complete and exquisite adaptation of every per- 
mitted joy or sorrow to our need at the moment. 

You know the persecutions of the early Chris- 
tians. But all historians acknowledge that this was 
a most potent influence in the growth of Christi- 
anity. You must have met with the old and com- 
mon saying, " The blood of the martyrs was the 
seed of the church.'' But the church consisted of 
the men and women who composed it. And it must 
have been good for them, if it was good for the 
church. Some of them knew it was, and rejoiced 
in it then. They all know it now, and are grateful 
for what grieved them. But if it was good and nec- 
essary for them — had it not been necessary it would 
not have been permitted — is it not certain that anal- 
ogous causes make it good for us also to pass 
through pain and suffering ? 



9 8 



WHERE THE EAST IS 



XX. 



I WANT a new English word, — one that shall 
translate the common French word "orienter." 
This name means, primarily, to know where the East 
is, and thence the other points of one's compass, 
and thence how to guide one's self. A French critic, 
speaking of Hegel's confused and cloudy metaphys- 
ics, says : " I cannot understand him. I am unable 
'm'orienter,' and do not know in what direction he 
seeks to lead me." But this is only one of the ways 
in which this metaphor may be used. There is 
scarcely anything to which it does not apply. Happy 
are they who, in the whole course of life, are always 
able " s'orienter," and know where their East is — 
that East to which, Swedenborg tells us, the angels 
always look. Miserable are they who are not thus 
able ! Shall I give you a figure which seems to me 
to illustrate this ? Suppose a man to be travelling 
on one of our boundless prairies, — clouds chase 
each other across the sky; all nature, as it seems 
to him, has a lowering aspect; he is quite dis- 
couraged, for he seeks his home and there is no sun 



WE SHALL REACH THE END WE SEEK 99 

to guide him. He must go on, for it is death to 
stand still. He knows not whether he goes forward 
or backward, or what is forward or backward. With 
eyes fastened to the ground he moves on, but with 
the sluggishness of despair. See ! from that little 
rift in the clouds the sun peeps out ; but our trav- 
eller no longer glances upward with his earth-bound 
eyes, and that heavenly guidance he loses sight of. 
He still moves on in his random course, but night 
approaches. Whose footsteps are these ? No other 
than his own, — he has been walking in a circle. 

Another man in the same wilderness, under as 
dark a sky, as weary and as far from refuge, knows 
that behind those clouds there must be a sun to tell 
him how to walk on earth. It is for him first to be- 
lieve and hope, and then to look up, and, if he may, 
find it. Let his way be miry and difficult, suppose 
him faint with hunger and his lips parched with 
thirst, and let a sense of loneliness make his heart 
almost sink — yet if he looks above, and looks trust- 
ingly, he will find his guide. Yes, there is a beauti- 
ful bright gleam ! He presses on, and if every step 
is one labor more, it is also one hope more, for he 
is certain that he is so much nearer rest. He knows 
the end he seeks — he knows that he shall reach it. 
In time ? Perhaps not. But he will reach it. 

It seems to me that under one or the other of 
these descriptions all the lives I know of may be 



ioo THE HUMILITY OF TRUE REPENTANCE 

ranked — in different ways or degrees, however. 
But then it is always certain that the best and hap- 
piest life is that in which a definite purpose is always 
in view, and always approached: 

I was much moved by your allusion to John the 
Baptist. As he represents Repentance, so his whole 
history in its least details is a perfect history of the 
birth, growth, nature, and working of repentance. 
John said : "I am the voice of one crying in the 
wilderness." Has it ever struck you what perfect 
humility was there — what humility there must be 
about all true repentance ? He claimed nothing for 
himself — rather would he turn away all attention 
from his own personality ; he prefers to call himself 
only a Voice — to be known of men simply as the in- 
strument and the forerunner of the Lord. And yet 
this was the great teacher of whom our Lord Him- 
self said : " Among them that are born of women 
there hath not arisen a greater than John the Bap- 
tist." There can be no deep and sincere repentance 
without a profound and very painful consciousness 
of sinfulness ; yet in this very darkest spot of the 
deep valley of the shadow of death, the Lord is seen 
to draw near, and Repentance cries, " Behold the 
Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the 
world." In the fifty-first Psalm — which expresses 
as no other words ever did the last intensity of 
humiliation and repentance — occur these words: 



TO BE CLEANSED BY BITTERNESS ioi 

" Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean." 
What the plant intended by the Hebrew word trans- 
lated " hyssop " actually was, is not certainly known. 
But it was used as a means of purification, and it 
was bitter. It is a prayer to be cleansed by bitter- 
ness — by sorrow and suffering. It welcomes, it asks 
for sorrow and suffering, if only they will cleanse. 
Why can we not all so pray ? Why at least when 
the cup of bitterness is held to our lips, can we not 
so drink as to help it do the work for which it is 
given ? 



102 AN IDEAL OF PROFOUND MISERY 



XXI. 

ONE of the fashions of the day is a little book 
propounding a list of questions as to various 
likes and dislikes, to which answers are to be writ- 
ten. It is called " Mental Photograph Book," be- 
cause the answers are supposed to give a picture of 
the writer's mind, even if jestingly given. Among 
the questions was this : " What is your ideal of pro- 
found misery ? " The answers interested me. One 
was, " To live with people who constantly and en- 
tirely misunderstand you." This seemed to me 
more rational than most of the other answers to the 
same question. To one of a sensitive nature, what 
can be more trying ? It is a long time before one 
brings himself — or herself — to acknowledge as a 
fact this sad state of things ; he is constantly trying, 
in new directions, to meet with that response which 
he so longs for, like a plant in an uncongenial soil, 
which sends out vainly its rootlets, seeking for its 
proper nutriment. But repeated failures in the end 
bring the conviction to him that he is spiritually 
alone ; and unless he can feel that he is alone with 
God, how great is that loneliness ! 



LIVING WITH UNCONGENIAL PEOPLE 103 

And yet just this burden of living with unconge- 
nial people is one of our Father's means of leading 
His unwilling children to His arms. For we must 
have love and sympathy ; and seeking first human 
love, perhaps vainly, we are brought to see that to 
which we had been before quite blind — the Divine 
love, the perfect sympathy, which are really enfold- 
ing us all the time. 

Yes, it seems at times as if an uncongenial atmos- 
phere was the profoundest of miseries ; but if we in- 
vestigate this misery, is not selfishness lurking at the 
root ? Do we ever meet with a simple, disinterested, 
loving person, one who constantly goes out of him- 
self — or herself — to help others, and who would 
yet be very wretched, even if thrown into utterly un- 
congenial society, and surrounded by circumstances 
the most adverse ? Such a person would find some- 
thing even then to love ; nor be utterly cast down 
because the return did not come directly. 

When, however, in spite of all the kindly feeling 
and outside friendship we may attain to, we are yet 
sadly conscious that our real life and thought are 
not in common with those about us, we need not 
look far to find a thousand tender alleviations and 
sweet solaces which our Father has provided on 
every hand. Nature is full of them. Who that has 
lived in the country has not felt the comfort which 
the glad songs of birds and brooks, the sweet wel- 



104 HOW TO BEAR ONE'S BURDEN 

come of green fields, can give ? And to the dwellers 
in cities the greatest of all Nature's comforts re- 
mains — that tender sky bending over all, with its 
cloudland so wonderfully varied as to reflect and 
correspond to every human mood; with its stars, 
which, piercing one by one the darkness of night, 
seem such clear symbols of the hope and faith which 
can illumine our gloom and trouble. 

And I would speak of one more point. If our lot 
is plainly cast among those who misapprehend us, 
and we feel the burden heavy, it will make things 
far easier, and will actually make the burden much 
lighter, if we will look up with trust and faith, and 
say, "This is my burden." But understand me 
here — of course it is my burden, but the question 
is, What do we mean when we say this ? Is it only 
because it has fallen on me ? Then this is not say- 
ing much — perhaps no more than this : " Here it is, 
and all I can do is to bear it as patiently as I may." 
But this is no more than the merest man of the world 
might say, if experience had taught him that fretting 
under a load only makes it heavier. I mean a great 
deal more by " this is my burden." I try at least to 
mean what I know to be true — - that it is mine, be- 
cause it is exactly the burden I need, and that it is 
this which makes it mine. None of us, I think, be- 
lieve that misfortunes, obstacles, and troubles float 
about, and fall, this on this one, that on that one, as 



THE TRUE SCIENCE OF RELIGION 105 

may happen, none escaping their share ; but few re- 
member, or believe, with sufficient positiveness of 
belief, that every burden is called to the very man 
on whom it falls, and at the moment when it falls, 
by his own needs and requirements. It is an inter- 
esting discovery of modern science that all the im- 
pelling force of the universe is one. We know also 
what mere natural science does not know, that the 
impelling force of this force is love — that this force 
itself, and all forces, are but forms, clothing, instru- 
ments of love. Nothing can happen as the effect of 
any other primal force, because there is no such 
other. Some effect of some of these forces has 
brought to us what seems a calamity, but it has come 
on an errand of love. It makes us unhappy, but it 
has come to enlarge, in some way, our capacity for 
happiness. 

All this is as demonstrable from the " science of 
religion," as any problem in Euclid is demonstrable 
from the science of geometry. But the difficulty is, 
that the science of religion has within its province 
the affections as well as the thoughts, the will as 
well as the understanding. And the affections are 
so difficult to guide, the will is so rebellious. , 



io6 BLAISE PASCAL 



XXII. 

THE writings of the celebrated Blaise Pascal 
are very interesting, but, to me, his biography- 
is still more so. He was indeed a wonderful man, 
not to be fathomed easily. I feel almost sure, how- 
ever, that he had in him possibilities of great good- 
ness, and also proclivities to an intensity of evil 
which could be suppressed so as to allow the ele- 
ment of good to be developed, only by a life of awful 
suffering. He died, after winning imperishable fame 
as one of the greatest of thinkers and writers, when, 
in years, he should have been in the meridian of his 
strength ; and he died worn out with misery, suffer- 
ing in all ways. Among other things he endured 
this — some dozen or more years before his death, 
as he was crossing a bridge, the horses took fright, 
cast themselves into the stream far below, and left 
the carriage hanging over the edge. From that 
hour till his death he saw, with more distinctness 
sometimes than at others, an open abyss at his side. 
Call this what we will, was it not at least a symbol ? 
And how is it with us ? May it not be that we dif- 
fer from him only in not seeing what is our abiding 
companion, even as it was his. 



GOD'S PROTECTING LOVE 107 

Swedenborg says somewhere what amounts to 
this : That if men knew the dangers from which they 
are constantly withheld by our Father's watchful 
mercy, they would be faint at once with terror and 
with gratitude. At all times we are under God's 
protecting love. It is difficult perhaps to accept the 
fact, and yet we cannot, if we think soberly for a 
moment, doubt that the father's protecting arms are 
just as much about the soldier struggling in mor- 
tal combat with his enemy, defending himself, we 
should say, with consummate skill, and straining 
every nerve in the contest, but at last defeated and 
dying, as about the same man in the perfect help- 
lessness of a profound sleep. And spiritually, from 
what are we not protected ? Not from evils alone, 
but from truths, if they are untimely, and such as 
we are not yet able to receive. And the Lord 
stands by us in the conflicts which new spiritual 
truth must bring. At times that truth shines upon 
us so fully that we rejoice in its light and warmth. 
But night must follow day. Our perceptions grow 
dim, and doubts assail us, and we ask why we are 
not contented to believe as others do. The winds 
rise, the clouds gather, within or without, and we 
shrink from the storm. But let us be patient if we 
can, and as trustful as we can, and we shall hear 
the voice which says to the tempest, " Peace, be 
still." 



io8 WHAT POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY RESTS ON 



XXIII. 

THERE never was an age when the internal 
mind, which looks only at things within, above 
and beyond matter, things which the inexorable 
chains of space and time do not fetter, was so inert, 
dormant, incapable of effort, and almost unconscious 
of being, as it is now. Of course there are, and 
must be in every age, those who live most in the in- 
ternal, and care most for spiritual things ; but I 
speak of the prevailing and characterizing qualities 
of man's work and activity in these days. 

All this culminates in the " Positive Philosophy " 
of Comte and Lewes and Miss Martineau. It finds 
in this its boldest, most logical, and inevitable re- 
sult. This famous and influential system rests on 
one single postulate, which it is devoted to maintain, 
and to draw due inferences therefrom. This postu- 
late is, that we have senses, and can learn and 
know whatever they teach, and all that can be logi- 
cally inferred from the facts which the senses dis- 
close. So much as this can be positively known ; 
and the system of thought which brings the whole 



THE WORK IT IS DOING 109 

of this together, gives it harmony, and embraces it 
all under one view, or rather which seeks to do this, 
is the " Positive Philosophy/' Outside of this, noth- 
ing can be known with any certainty, or inferred 
with a sufficient probability to satisfy a truly rational 
mind. Hence everything not embraced in this sys- 
tem is mere conjecture and fantasy. Jealous chiefly 
for scientific truth, the positivists assert that these 
fantasies and illusions have sought to obtain support 
from science, which they would then misguide and 
distort. And sometimes, in the uneasy conscious- 
ness that true science was the inexorable enemy of 
their illusions, they have succeeded in obstructing 
her advance, or imposing upon her silence. 

Always, from the very nature and necessity of 
things, this Positive Philosophy (under other names) 
has been loved and cultivated by some who were 
strong thinkers, and by some who have made real 
gains in knowledge of an external kind ; and this 
Philosophy has now reached a point in its gradual 
growth and development at which it is beginning to 
do the most important and useful distinctive work 
that such truth can do, namely, dissipate the super- 
stitions of earlier ages, by showing that they rest on 
no foundation, and exist only because Fear, the fear 
of death and the afterwards, has found in fancy and 
in folly these delusive consolations. Such is the 
Positive Philosophy. It is no part of the work of 



no /S THERE NOT A BETTER WAY? 

this Positive Philosophy to construct any system of 
spiritual truth, or the elements or foundations of any 
such system. It can only destroy ; and we may be- 
lieve that one reason why it has been permitted to 
reach its present power is that there is among men 
so much spiritual falsity which is ready for destruc- 
tion. To substitute truth for the falsities thus re- 
moved, will be the work of a very different philoso- 
phy. 

The principles of Positive Philosophy now seem 
to prevail in the great majority of thinking men who 
concern themselves about these matters. But what 
a very small proportion of mankind are thinking 
men ; I mean reflective, philosophizing men. This 
is well ; for were it otherwise, in these dark ages, 
error would have a still wider diffusion and greater 
strength. But the mercy of our Father slumbers 
not. Is there not clear evidence that some of the 
best thinkers of Europe and this country, who can- 
not give up God and immortality, and who can find 
no flaw in the impenetrable armor of Positivism 
when it is met on its own ground — or rather when it 
is assailed only by weapons formed from the same 
material as its armor — are asking, Is there not a 
better way ? Does not Positivism deny or ignore a 
whole world of thought, feeling, being, and con- 
sciousness, of which we have just as good a right to 
be certain as of this outer world? Are there not 



WHAT IT WILL LEAD TO 



intellectual faculties suited to this inner and higher 
world, and belonging to it, which we should exer- 
cise, to learn the truths that are above those which 
alone are acknowledged by the Positive Philosophy? 
Presently these questions will be asked more gener- 
ally and more urgently, and some, at least, of the 
inquirers will be led to the truths which can give a 
prompt and perfect answer. And I think it is be- 
cause such an answer is now accessible, that this in- 
fidelity has been permitted to have, in the present 
age, a development, completeness, and force, which 
it never had before. Therefore let us rejoice in the 
wonderful progress which is shown in the science of 
the external. For the time will come when it will 
all be utilized in the service of spiritual truth ; for 
all of it, to its minutest details, will be found to be 
only the embodiment and expression of that truth. 



H2 HOW TO FORM OPINIONS 



XXIV. 

I WENT the other day to see the famous picture 
by S , which is now on exhibition in the 

town nearest us. I could see little that was attrac- 
tive in it, though I had gone expecting to admire, 

and tried to do so. Perhaps if S heard me say 

this, he would answer as Turner answered his critic, 
" Don't you wish you could," — and perhaps he would 
be in the right. Must we then form no opinions 
about matters which lie outside of our peculiar range 
of thought or skill ? Yes, form opinions, but be not 
too sure of them. Here, as occurs constantly in the 
questions which life presents to us, there is no sharp 
dividing line, with certainty on either side of it. 
We may all form opinions on all things ; but when 
we would know the value of our opinions, let us 
measure that by the means w r e have for forming just 
opinions, as for example our knowledge, skill, and 
habits of thought. I suppose if there is one thing 
which is always wrong, it is a contemptuous denial 
of anything which has no immoral taint. And if 
there is a thing always foolish, it is to be sure that 



THE GIFT OF THE BEAUTIFUL 113 

we know better, and must know better at a glance, 
than they do who offer us some proposition, or some 
work, which has been with them the subject of long, 
patient, and earnest study. And so, to return to 
the picture in question, it was perhaps rather weak 
to express or to have any definite opinion about it, 
which was quite valueless, from my ignorance of 
such things. I have been reading something about 
beauty which interested me very much, and set me 
thinking on that and kindred topics. It is some- 
times overwhelming to think of the beauty that God 
showers upon us in a single day. Nor do I mean an 
extraordinary day, when the sight of some rarely 
beautiful woman, or a troop of lovely children, or a 
peep into a friend's rose-garden, or a gorgeous sun- 
set has been vouchsafed to us ; not one of those 
days we call white, but one of the plain, neutral- 
tinted days — for even in one of these what a wealth 
of loveliness does our Father create for us ! Nor is 
the beautiful only what one can see or touch. Is it 
not quite as much an attribute of what we can feel 
or hear for instance of a poetical thought, or of a 
strain of melody ? 

Beauty resides, it is true, in the form of things, 
but not necessarily must the form have shape also ; 
for that is only one appearance of form. I see that 
my subject is leading me into the land of metaphy- 
sics, which I did not intend ; but I will ask you to 



H4 WHAT FORM IS 

accompany me there for the brief remaining space 
of this letter. Form is the correlative of essence. 
Everything that exists has that which makes it what 
it is — and this is its essence ; while how it is, is its 
form. We make a mistake sometimes in undervalu- 
ing form. For by its form everything acts and 
manifests itself ; and unless the form is adequate to 
the essence, no matter what that is, it cannot pro- 
duce the effect which belongs to it. This is true of 
art in all its forms, and of all things of science. It 
is in this sense only that beauty belongs to form 
and not to essence. Now there is such a thing as 
exclusive devotion to form, and such another thing 
as exclusive devotion to essence. Perhaps both are 
equally wrong. If one is wholly occupied with the 
essence of things, and finds no pleasure except in 
constant analysis, and asks of everything the reason 
for its being, it is not only true that he can have no 
perception and enjoyment of the beautiful, but it is 
also true that he can never understand completely 
the very thing he studies. But it is also obvious 
enough that one who looks only at the beautiful, 
and is alive to nothing else, will find it. impossible 
to understand anything fully. And it is just as 
true that if there be no comprehension of the dis- 
tinctive form, no seeing that with the clearness and 
keenness of vision which a real enjoyment of the 
beautiful necessarily implies, the essence itself can 
be only imperfectly comprehended. 



PROVIDENCE NOT CHANCE 115 



XXV. 

I HAVE sometimes thought that a strong argu- 
ment in favor of the belief that life is under 
providential government might be drawn from the 
marvellous equality, on the whole, of good and evil 
among men. Were it chance which determined this 
distribution, calamities would gather about some 
with no relief or compensation, while others would 
be wholly free from them. But the more closely I 
study human conditions, the more certain I am that 
there is far less difference than there seems to be 
among men, when the balance is struck between ex- 
ternal good and evil. There seems to be no good 
without its cloud, no evil without its compensations. 
And then we may go further, if we will, and see not 
only that all this is governed, but we may discern 
the end for which it is controlled and directed. We 
may learn the lesson, and we cannot learn it too 
well, that we do not live here to be happy, but to 
become capable of happiness. 

Our Father has many ways of helping us, all re- 
solvable into two — one, through our cooperation ; 



n6 HIS WAY NOT OURS 

and because this way is given us, it is also given us 
to see and understand it, that we may the better 
work with Him. The other way is, in and upon us, 
and apparently against us, without our having any 
voluntary share in the work — and this it is not nec- 
essary for us to understand at all, and perhaps if 
we did we should interfere with it. 

Certain I am that He does a work in straighten- 
ing our obliquities and removing our obstructions, 
in a way which brings upon us great suffering, or 
bids us see suffering in others, and all the light we 
can get must radiate from a simple trust in Him. 



THE DOCTRINE OF USE 117 



XXVI. 

WE meet often, in our reading of New-Church 
books, with the word " use," and it bears in 
these writings a rather peculiar meaning. It in- 
cludes all activity for a good result. A man's em- 
ployment is his "use," that is, his way of being 
useful. The word often means much the same as 
good works, and our doctrine of use may be regarded 
as our doctrine of good works. 

Let us, for a moment, compare the teachings of 
the Xew Church with those of other churches or re- 
ligions concerning this subject. 

They all inculcate good works — but in what way, 
and upon what grounds ? The Catholic and Greek 
Churches hold firmly to the necessity of good w r orks, 
regarding them as commanded by God, and made 
by Him the condition of salvation. But they regard 
this latter as the promised wages of good works. 
And the Catholic Church holds that her saints hav- 
ing performed many more good works than w r ere 
needed for their own salvation, the surplus, or 
%% works of supererogation," go into the treasury of 



n8 NEW-ENGLAND LIBERALISM 

the church, and may be thence imparted to those 
who need them. The divine standard which Christ 
held up for His disciples, " Be ye therefore perfect, 
as your Father in heaven is perfect,'' must have 
been terribly degraded before men could have 
believed such a monstrous error. Protestantism 
thought so, and reacted violently, going to the oppo- 
site extreme — to salvation by faith alone. Calvin, 
Luther, Melancthon, and other Protestant leaders 
all stood on this ground, though Calvin worked out 
the doctrine most elaborately into the system which 
bears his name, and is sometimes called orthodoxy. 
Our Puritan fathers held this doctrine in its extrem- 
ist severity, and New-England Liberalism is only 
the reaction against it ; for history has no more cer- 
tain lesson than that extremes are always followed 
by opposite extremes. The sterner views of ortho- 
doxy have been much mitigated, and the old doc- 
trine is now modified by the farther doctrine that no 
faith is a saving faith which does not lead to, and, 
as far as possible, is manifested and proved by, 
good works. But this, so far as I have been able 
to learn, is the best, and indeed all, that orthodoxy 
has to say about good works. 

But New-England Liberalism, which has now 
great power through the country, is the reaction 
against Puritanism, or against salvation by faith 
alone. It is zealous, very zealous for good works, 



THE MOTIVE NOT THE ACT 



and it is a common expression, and probably a more 
common sentiment, that he is the good man, what- 
ever he may believe or deny, whose life is full of 
good works. 

" For modes of faith let graceless bigots fight ; 
He can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 

There is most important truth in this — and does 
not our Lord say, " By their works ye shall know 
them " ? But it is obvious and certain that some- 
thing more should be looked at than mere external 
actions — must there not be some reference to mo- 
tives ? Everybody would admit that it is possible 
for the most selfish man to abound in beneficent 
actions and wear the disguise of fervent benevo- 
lence, from mere selfishness, or merely to win there- 
by applause, position, influence, and power, and 
other good things. The greatest scoundrel in Eng- 
lish social history, by name Chartres, said he would 
give ten thousand pounds for a good reputation. 
When asked what he wanted that for, he answered : 
" Because I could make fifty thousand by it." No 
one who was known to have such views and motives 
would be called a good man, let his conduct be what 
it might. It seems to me that the motives of most 
of those whom I know, or know about, who are busy 
in doing good and urging and helping others to do 
good, are good motives, even if not the highest, or 
love of our Lord and love of our neighbor. If the 



120 THE DANGER OF SELF-COMPLACENCY 

motives are not positively bad, the good deeds, in 
themselves, will be a training and preparation for 
higher activity and consequent happiness in another 
life. For I believe that such persons will go, when 
they die, where they will learn — what they cannot, 
in the decay of religious truth all around them, so 
well learn here — what good is. They will learn 
that while their Father alone is good in Himself, He 
gives His goodness, His life, Himself, to them ; and 
the happiness of a life animated by this truth will 
be theirs, so far as they have left their hearts open 
to receive it. But I fear there are some who have 
rejected all religious truth because they have too 
much pride in self " to walk humbly with their 
God " — who are not preparing for heaven by any 
amount of external good which they may do. If 
they reject not this or that form of religion, but the 
substance of all religion, and are content with dec- 
larations which satisfy the requirements of society 
and good manners, and call on them for no renun- 
ciation of their own self-complacency, how are they 
on the way to heaven, where God is All in All, and 
self is forgotten ? If our good deeds give us pleas- 
ure because they nourish our self-contentment, and 
justify and soothe our self-love, and prove that such 
men as we have no need of religion or of God, un- 
less my theory of heaven is utterly wrong, we are 
building up a character which is the exact antago- 
nist of heaven and its happiness. 



WHAT GOD REQUIRES OF US 12 1 



XXVII. 

WE are told by the prophet Micah : " What 
doth God require of thee, but to do justly, 
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " 

Sometimes our Lord's precepts amaze us by their 
simplicity. Is this all, is this the whole requirement 
of God ? There are what purport to be many oth- 
ers ; does this embrace and include them all ? Is 
it the end for which all the others are given, and is 
it of itself sufficient ? In other words, is it indeed 
just what it is said to be — all that God requires of 
us ? 

At all events, this seems to be said emphatically. 
If we search among religions, both past and pres- 
ent, I think we shall find that there never has been 
a religion which did not declare, with whatever va- 
riety of phrase, that it was man's duty to be just and 
merciful, and look up to God with humility and rev- 
erence. At least it is certain that no religion has 
ever ceased to require these things, until it had fal- 
len by its corruption into such falsity and degrada- 
tion that it could no longer be called a religion. 



122 HOW ONE CHURCH DIFFERS FROM A NO THER 

If this be so, the question almost necessarily oc- 
curs : Why, then, is one system of religious belief 
better than another ? Why not be a Mahommedan 
or a Buddhist ? Why has Providence permitted 
such an immense variety of religions in different re- 
gions of the earth ? or why the long succession of 
them in successive ages ? 

Or to ask the same question in a more specific 
form : Why did Christianity come to build a new 
church on the foundations of Judaism, if in the Jew- 
ish Scriptures the one essential of all truth is an- 
nounced with perfect clearness ? and why has a new 
revelation now been made to develop and complete 
Christianity ? 

The answer to these questions may be this — The 
text under consideration does state in the fewest 
words, and with the clearness of crystal, the essen- 
tial of all religion and the end for which it exists 
upon earth. But one religion, one church differs 
from another in the instruction which it gives con- 
cerning this central truth, the assistance it offers 
towards our understanding its meaning, its ground, 
and its effect, and the motives it offers for obeying 
and revering this law. 

If we examine carefully the religions of the past 
and those of the present, to see what they tell us — 
we will except the New Church just now from our 
consideration — would they say more than this : 



TRUE HUMILITY 123 

that we should be just and merciful because God 
commands it, and any intelligent reflection assures 
us that we should, individually, be better and hap- 
pier if we were so ; and that all mankind would be 
in a happier condition if this law prevailed in human 
actions. Hence we should infer that the divine 
command suits human character and human life, 
and is adapted to them in such wise that we are 
more truly human and better and higher beings the 
more we obey it. As to the last clause, "walk hum- 
bly with thy God," what are we told? Humility is 
the most unobtrusive of all virtues, but it is the 
sweetest flower of all, and whether much practised 
in the present age or not, excites, when it is seen, a 
genuine love and admiration, and is emphatically 
enjoined upon the disciples of all religions whatso- 
ever. But let us condense the teachings of these 
various religions into a paragraph ; and is it not the 
substance of them all, that both duty and reason 
call on us to look up to the Almighty Being, who 
made and governs the world, with unfailing rever- 
ence ? with that reverence which is due to the infi- 
nite superiority of His nature and His power, and 
to the love and wisdom we discern in His works, 
and the relation between Him and us as the children 
of His creation and care ? These ideas may be am- 
plified and illustrated to any extent, and in such va- 
rious ways as the various minds of men may prompt. 



124 FOUNDATION UPON WHICH FAITH RESTS 

But nothing more can be said unless we speak from 
the instruction of the New Church. 

And what can we say of this law if we attempt to 
say what the New Church has taught ? Much more 
asks to be said than I could put in this letter or 
in many letters, but I will confine myself to general 
statements. 

And again, I ask you, my dear friend, not to be 
weary of the often reiterated method which must be 
adopted in our search after truth. I mean that of 
first recurring to central doctrines, before endeav- 
oring to explain this law or any of the laws of life. 
It may be asked, Must we forever repeat the same 
journey ? Not quite that ; but we must not forget 
the foundation on which rests the whole system of 
faith which we have accepted, and always comparing 
any new truth which comes to us with these funda- 
mental truths, reject what does not harmonize with 
the latter. 

A central truth in the New Church tells us that 
our life is in its origin divine ; that our Father gives 
it to us at every instant, and makes it our own ; and 
this because He desires to give us just as much of 
His happiness as we can possibly receive. He has 
made us such, that we may receive of His wisdom 
flowing into our understanding, there to become our 
thought, knowledge, and truth ; and of His love into 



JUSTICE IS TRUTH IN ACT 125 

our will, there to become all the love or affection 
that is in us. 

We must advert to this, for if we would say why 
we should strive to be just, we must say that it is 
because God is perfectly just. Justice is truth in 
act, and a just action is one in accordance with all 
the truths which belong to the facts concerned in it ; 
one that perfectly obeys all which that truth dic- 
tates ; one that perfectly conforms to all which that 
truth declares to be right. But that which is truth 
to us is but a ray from the Infinite Wisdom that is 
in Him ; a drop from the Infinite ocean of His 
truth. Our Father is perfect justice. And, there- 
fore, if our happiness is measured by our reception 
of His divine life, when He commands us to " do 
justly " He is only pointing out the way in which 
we may receive as much of the perfect happiness 
springing from His own perfect justice as it is possi- 
ble for a finite and created being to receive. Then 
we are also commanded to love mercy. And now 
we have only to speak of love instead of wisdom, 
of affection instead of thought, of will instead of un- 
derstanding, and just what has been said of truth 
and law and justice must now be said of affection 
and love and mercy. 

But then this is to be added. In Him, Love is 
infinite and perfect, and Wisdom is infinite and per- 
fect, and because both are perfect both are one. 



126 JUSTICE MUST BE UNITED WITH MERCY 

For it is impossible that perfect Love should include 
any love which perfect Wisdom did not sanction, 
for a love which offended wisdom would be most 
imperfect. And it is impossible for perfect Wisdom 
to regard anything as wise which stood in opposition 
to pure Love. And as Love and Wisdom are one in 
the Lord, so would He have them one in ourselves. 
We can see this but very dimly in this life. We can 
see however that justice which knew not mercy 
would be hard, severe, and implacable ; and that 
mercy which quite refused to listen to justice, would 
be mistaken and blind, and most mischievous. We 
can see then that justice is most nearly perfect and 
most beneficial when it remembers mercy, and that 
mercy is most useful and safe when it is most just. 
Many good and sensible people would say that we 
are trying to reconcile opposites, or indeed antago- 
nists ; that it is the very work of justice to think 
only of truth and law, and not be misled by the 
claims of mercy ; while mercy ceases to be mercy in 
the exact degree in which it is restrained and guided 
by justice. 

This fearful fallacy is at once the effect and the 
proof of our wide departure from that true order of 
love, and thought, and life, which we were created 
to make the order of our own life, and to be happy 
only in the measure in which we did this. When 
shall we see that justice and mercy, children of wis- 



WALKING HUMBLY WITH GOD 127 

dom and love, are in our Father perfectly united, 
and see too why He has wished and commanded 
that they should be in us and one in us ? 

And now I have reached the last clause of the 
text : " Walk humbly with thy God." But a consid- 
eration of this must be deferred to another letter, 
and then I shall hope to show that the other re- 
quirements of the text begin from this and end in 
this, and are included within it. 



128 WHAT WORKS REALLY ARE GOOD 



XXVIII. 

IN a previous letter I spoke briefly of the views of 
other churches ; and what has the New Church 
to say to all of these, to all everywhere who desire 
to know what good works are, or what works really 
are good ? 

For one answer : Every work is good upon which 
we can and do heartily ask God's blessing ; and 
without this petition there is no goodness there at 
all — it is salt without savor. Of course I do not 
mean by this that we are in any prescribed form of 
words to invoke the Divine blessing before every 
action, nor do I forget the sad list of evil deeds that 
have been done immediately after such invocation, 
and professedly in God's name. I said, " heartily 
ask God's blessing; " that is, with the whole heart, 
and in all sincerity. Then, even though the judg- 
ment might be greatly in fault, the spirit which 
could thus look to God in humility, and love, and 
patience, could not look long without having its vis- 
ion cleared of much infirmity ; and the work done 
with such preparation, however poor it might ap- 



THE WIDOW'S MITE 



pear to human eyes, I think would be, in the sight 
of our Lord, a better one than the grandest work 
ever conceived and achieved by the human mind, if 
it was based upon human self-ascription and pride. 

Remember the parable of the many rich men, and 
the widow who cast her mite, her all, into the treas- 
ury of the temple. A beautiful and touching pic- 
ture this has always been. We can see the poor 
woman timidly approaching the treasury, among the 
crowd of rich men, so unknown to them, and they 
so far above her, as she supposed, and who, if they 
noticed her at all, would quite despise her miserable 
offering. But One was there who saw and did not 
despise, and from the poor widow's gift drew a les- 
son not only for His disciples but for all men and 
all ages. Let us look at the inner meaning of the 
parable, as the New Church teaches us, for it is 
there still more beautiful. 

Women representing the affectional and men tKe 
intellectual part of our nature, a widow would there- 
fore represent one of either sex who has good affec- 
tions, but has not knowledge or truth concerning 
them, and feels and deplores the want. But one 
thing this widow can do, and does. She casts her 
mite, all the good she has, into the treasury of God, 
and she does this by calling it all His — His gift 
to her, and so returned to Him. This is indeed 
much ; more than all the gifts of the earth if these 



130 THE ONE THING WANTING 

left the giver dearer to himself, prouder of himself, 
and further from God. What gifts can have any 
value to God except so far as they enable Him to 
return more blessing to the giver ? 

It is a remarkable characteristic of our age and 
country that reforms of all kinds are urged with 
great earnestness, and enlist multitudes in their 
favor. Meetings are held, associations are formed, 
projects of all kinds are offered for consideration. 
The poet, the orator, and the writer are all busy in 
the work. And this work is an effort to reform and 
improve society, to make the condition of women 
more comfortable and prosperous, to suppress in- 
temperance and vice in every form, to help the 
criminal to amend his life, to provide employment 
for all who seek it, and give to all employment ade- 
quate compensation. Is not all this right ? Is not 
the purpose, at all events, a good one? Most, cer- 
tainly. But there is one fact connected with this 
effort for the reformation of society and of human 
conduct which is most significant. It is the entire 
absence of all reference to another life. Few seem 
to notice this fact ; but in watching carefully the 
common and public procedings on all these points, 
I have looked vainly for one argument, from poet, 
orator, writer, or from platforms, constitutions, or 
resolutions, one argument in favor of these reforms, 
resting on the ground that they will make this life a 



LIFE SEPARATED FROM RELIGION 13 1 

better preparation for another. Would you suggest 
that all this is assumed and implied in what is said ? 
In return, I ask a question — Would such a thought 
underlie a mass of varied and most earnest expres- 
sions, and yet itself never be expressed ? This is 
not human nature ; even with the strongest motives 
and efforts for reticence, any real conviction will 
sooner or later show itself. There is not often in 
these reform movements a denial of immortality, 
but an entire postponement of the question — an en- 
tire want of a vital belief. Would you suggest that 
these reformers are unwilling to bring religious 
views or feelings into discussions of this kind, be- 
cause it is not their province, because it would ob- 
struct or imperil the reform itself ? This, alas ! is 
only another proof that much of the common life of 
today is separated from religion. 

Sometimes a thought of this kind has occurred to 
me. This life has two values : — one for itself, one 
in reference to another life. Which of these is the 
predominant value in any age or race ? There may 
be many tests of this, many topics worthy of con- 
sideration in a discussion of the question. I will 
write of only one, and that, I confess beforehand, 
leads me to a conclusion which all the consideration 
I am able to give to the subject confirms. It is, 
that never before since the beginning of mankind 
was there an age in which the value of this life for 



132 MEN WORK FOR WHAT THEY VALUE MOST 

itself so preponderated over its value in reference to 
another life. 

The only test I will refer to is a simple one. In 
all ages, men work hardest for that which they value 
most ; and the labor and money expended for a cer- 
tain good are a reasonably fair measure of the value 
set upon it. In all ages, temples, cathedrals, and 
churches are among the things upon which men be- 
stow their labor and their gold ; but these are the 
instruments of religion, and the expressions of the 
religious sentiment ; and while they sometimes illus- 
trate the character of this sentiment, they generally 
afford some measure of its force. Now go back to 
distant ages. Look in India at the wcnders of the 
old religious architecture, now, for the most part, 
abandoned and in ruin. Look at the recent discov- 
ery in Cambodia, of an enormous temple, of which 
the ruins attest the unrivalled extent and magnifi- 
cence, while not even a tradition exists in its neigh- 
borhood as to its founders or its age. Go to Egypt ; 
the temple at Karnak covered more than forty acres ; 
its circumference is more than a mile and a half. 
In one of its many halls were more than a hundred 
and fifty vast pillars of stone, some of which stand 
nearly unharmed, and others, prostrate and shat- 
tered, are now almost covered with the sand which 
has been heaped upon them by the winds of the 
desert through many centuries ; and there has been 



THE TRUE IMPELLING FORCE 133 

no desire, no thought of even an attempt to preserve 
what far distant ages built. Then come to later 
ages, and think of the numerous and magnificent 
European cathedrals. One of the most beautiful 
and costly, the cathedral of Cologne, was not quite 
finished when the piety that began it began to fail. 
For more than a hundred years there have been at- 
tempts, frequently repeated, to acquire and apply 
the means of completing it as an exquisite work of 
art ; but it remains unfinished. 

On coming home to our own country what do we 
find ? Forty thousand miles of railroad ! A skilful 
engineer has recently shown, by some careful statis- 
tics, that the labor employed on the new road which 
spans this continent would have built any of those 
Egyptian fabrics which have been the wonder of the 
world. Would these pyramids, temples, and cathe- 
drals ever have been built, had not the universal 
belief and the profound feeling of the relation of 
this world to the other given impulse and support to 
the builders of them ? For the worship of a Being 
higher than ourselves, and the idea of another world 
than this, where this Supreme Being dwells, and 
where we hope to go when we die, are too closely 
intertwined in our souls ever to be sundered in any- 
thing which deserves the name of religion. Moral- 
ity may dispense with the idea of immortality, but 
morality alone never built churches. Remember, I 



134 THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL 

am not saying a word about the comparative truth 
or error of religion in one age or another, but only 
about its force and vitality. And how much more 
could be said in proof of my conclusion, that in this 
age religion is decaying ; not dead, that it cannot 
be, for there is abundant evidence that it has yet 
much vitality ; neither, if it were wholly dead, could 
mankind survive. But it has decayed, and is decay- 
ing and in peril of death, if its decay were not ar- 
rested. 

Is it not then, time for God to speak again ? If 
there be a God, and a heaven, and life is eternal, 
and the real and abiding value of this present exist- 
ence consists in the possibilities which it offers for 
preparation for a future life, and if God has created 
us for this end, is it not time that He should • speak 
again ? Not that He should utter a new Word, for 
that is not needed ; but that He should so speak 
that the veil should be lifted from His Word, and 
its light beam forth for the salvation of mankind. 
It is precisely this which He has done. 

And what does the truth of the New Dispensation 
say to the lovers of good works ? It tells them that 
it is impossible to set too high a value on good 
works, for their value is infinite. And then it tells 
them w T hat constitutes this value. It bids them go 
forward with increased zeal in all their projects and 
efforts for reforming society, but it also tells them 



HOW TO DO GOD'S WORK 135 

they will work feebly and with little result if they do 
not remember that sin is the source of all misery, 
and that against its fearful power neither expedi- 
ency, nor the dignity of human nature, nor all the 
suggestions of self-interest or self-pride will prove 
weapons of sufficient strength. In this war nothing 
is strong but the profound conviction that the in- 
most soul of all sin against man is sin against God ; 
as the soul of all true love for the neighbor is the 
love of God. 

And lastly, the New Church tells us all that if we 
are doing what is really good, we are doing God's 
work, and that only so far as it is His work done by 
us can it prosper. If we are ready to receive gifts 
from Him, His love will animate, His wisdom guide, 
His strength invigorate all that we do. Reform 
animated by such motives and guided by such truths 
will not be mistaken in its aims or the means it em- 
ploys, and cannot be resisted. 



136 THE DOCTRINE OF THE LORD 



XXIX. 

THERE are those who seem to think that New- 
Church doctrines may be held and believed as 
those of the Old Church could be, and that is with 
sharp-cut, exact, and denned precision. But this is 
utterly impossible. The very peculiarity of the new 
doctrines is, that now infinite truths are given in the 
form of doctrines. There will be no further and ad- 
ditional Church, because there needs to be none, in- 
asmuch as all possible growth and advancement in 
religious truth will be made by gradual but eternal 
development from the truths now given. And this 
could not be, if these truths were not infinite. Thus 
to apply this to the doctrine of our Lord. The 
Christian Church knew from the beginning that 
God was three in one. But they wanted to define 
this infinite truth, so they said he was three sub- 
stances, or three hypostases, or three persons, and 
one God. But now reflecting minds see that this is 
impossible. Hence many, discarding the doctrine 
of three persons, discard with it all thought of three- 
foldness in God, because it did not occur to them 



ONE WORD CANNOT EXPRESS IT 137 

that this could be without three persons. Does 
Swedenborg say three persons ? No, he utterly de- 
nies it ; and yet his whole system is founded upon 
this threefoldness. What then does he say, or what 
do we say instead of persons ? Nothing ; nothing 
whatever ; because we have no idea about it which 
could be adequately expressed in one concrete word. 
I think there will never be such a word. At all 
events, there is no such word now. Three in one is 
enough for us. Then Swedenborg, and we after 
him, try to illustrate this by the love, motive, or af- 
fection which is the inmost of our nature, by the 
thoughts in which this inmost essence comes forth 
into existence and consciousness, and the activity 
which comes when the love through the thought 
leads to and clothes itself with the actions of the 
man. 

Or we think of the soul, the body which the soul 
forms and uses as its instrument, and the activity of 
the soul through the body. Or we find a still more 
universal illustration in the fact that whatever ex- 
ists must have an end for which it is, a form or 
method of existence by which this end may be ac- 
complished, and a use or effect in which that primal 
end is clothed and comes down into effect. And 
all this comes into the form of a spiritual or relig- 
ious truth. 

We know that God the Father is infinite and in- 



138 THE ALL LN ALL 

conceivable love, and wisdom, and power. That 
He comes down in Jesus Christ, begotten by Him 
alone and born of a virgin, and without a human 
father, to be Immanuel, or God with us, no longer 
inconceivable and beyond all reach of thought, but 
our Father as a Divine Man, who may be to us an 
object of personal worship and love. And then we 
know that the Divine Spirit, the spirit of love and 
wisdom from the Father and the Son, is eternally 
employed in helping us to become happy forever. 

This is a simple view, needing no metaphysics, 
apprehensible in its simplest terms by a child, and 
attended with no difficulty or obscurity, unless we 
try to deal with this truth as no religious truth and 
no truth but one of natural science can be dealt 
with — unless we try to do what the angels cannot 
do, grasp and measure the infinite. The only essen- 
tial is to believe that our Infinite Father came to us 
as Jesus Christ — is even now with us, clothed in all 
power, and using it with unspeakable watchfulness 
and tenderness for our salvation. This is all. One 
may ask if we should not try to have some rational 
comprehension of this. Most certainly we should. 
Of the infinite help, comfort, and strength this truth 
gives to our love and faith, I will not try to speak, 
for I cannot. But it is all endangered by that self- 
love from which none are free, and which makes us, 
when an angel would veil his face and bow down, 



THE EVIL POWER OF SELF-LOVE 139 

open our eyes in the belief that if any truth be, then 
we can see it all. Oh ! how this form of self-love 
clouds and darkens us, and often, unconsciously, 
because we cannot see all quite clearly, makes us 
lose our hold upon what we can see and feel. One 
of the very reasons for which clouds and darkness 
rest upon His throne, is that we may humble our- 
selves before Him and cast out these devils of self- 
trust. And then, if we do this, He will make the 
clouds His chariot, and " come to us in the clouds." 



14° TRUST MUST BE ACTIVE 



T 



XXX. 

O walk with God ! what a beautiful image is 
presented to the mind by these words ! All 
the paternal tenderness of the Almighty Father, all 
the filial love and trust of His poor, dependent 
child, as they walk hand in hand, the child looking 
up to the Father for everything, knowing that he 
cannot breathe without receiving his breath, his in- 
spiration, from the Divine One at his side, glad and 
willing to go on the road where He is going, and 
sure that it is best — all this is obvious at first, but 
yet this is not all. As we must never let our trust 
and dependence on our Father relapse into inactiv- 
ity, either of mind or body, so in thinking about 
this walking with God, let us not lose sight of the 
spiritual meaning of this word to "walk." It is 
to move, to live, to do ; not to be lost in stagna- 
tion and unfruitful quietude, but to be active in all 
usefulness. I have already said something about 
Uses ; but it is a large theme, and one may return 
to it often and ever without exhausting any of its 
aspects. 



MEN MUST TOUCH EACH OTHER 141 

Let us look at the thing as it stands in the world 
about us. In the first place, every dead thing in the 
universe seems to be for a purpose. If a pebble 
does nothing else, it contributes its mite to the grav- 
ity of the earth, and to its place and movement. 
But it has done, in its history, far more. A drop of 
water, too, is another object, so small that it might 
perhaps be an exception to the universal law, and 
yet it performs a myriad of uses ; even a wreath of 
vapor may veil the effulgence of a too bright sun, 
and presently fall in rains of refreshment on the 
earth. 

Then all living things are active, each in its own 
way and degree doing something. Perhaps hold- 
ing up the " busy bee " as the example of industry, 
has made us unmindful of the great activity which 
all show in fulfilling their God-given instincts. 

And when we come to men, all are useful in 
some way to their fellow-beings. The most inert 
cannot be wholly useless ; for somewhere in his life, 
or by something that he does or suffers, he must 
help the common weal, although he never thinks of 
it. Some men devote themselves to a life of useful- 
ness, either by toiling for a specific good, as How- 
ard, or by a liberal use of great means, as Peabody, 
and their life is a benefit and blessing to hundreds 
of their fellow-men. But nearly all of us are useful 
because we cannot help being so. Either necessity 



142 WHENCE COMES MAN'S LIFE 

fastens on us the need of daily toil — and this is so 
with the vast majority of mankind — or, if we are 
beyond this necessity, the fear of it for ourselves or 
our children, or the love of wealth, or ambition, 
stimulates our industry. However this may be, the 
only thing common to all men, and working as if it 
were a law of human life, is that whatever be the 
motive or wish, all men are useful to others, and 
most men actively so. 

How are we to explain this fact, a fact only less 
universal (if it indeed be less) than that all must 
die. 

Here, as elsewhere, in seeking an explanation of 
this life-problem, we must go back to central truths. 
Whence comes man's life ? Is it not from God ? 
And is it not God's own life which He gives us to 
be our own because He has an infinite desire to give 
us all the happiness we are capable of receiving ? 
His Infinite Love is infinitely active through His 
wisdom in the putting forth of His power. The 
constant putting it forth for the continued existence 
of the universe, is a perpetual creation by Him who 
knows not Time. And we may believe that the hap- 
piness of God springs from this eternal exercise of 
His power in Infinite Use. Heaven, we are taught, 
is " a kingdom of uses," and the happiness of heav- 
en is the happiness of usefulness. 

Therefore He gives to men so much of this Love, 



THE INTERNAL IS IN PERFECT FREEDOM 143 

this Wisdom, and this Power, to be theirs, as they 
will accept, that each, in his own way and measure, 
may be an instrument of His Infinite Use. 

In the first and lowest place, every atom of the 
dead universe has its use because every atom is the 
offspring of Love, Wisdom, and Power, all, by the 
necessity of their own nature, engaged in constant 
use ; and therefore every atom must share this char- 
acter and quality. Much the same thing may be 
said when we rise to the animal kingdom, but more 
emphatically, because Life is there. 

And if we ascend to human life, the same thing 
is still true, and helps to account for the universal 
and inevitable necessity of usefulness. But how 
much more is true ! For this life is, with men, a 
preparation for another and never-ending life, and 
all happiness there must rest on usefulness. So 
much as this God can do for nearly all men — He 
can compel them to acquire this faculty and habit. 
But He desires, with the whole force of His great 
love for us, that we should love to be useful. Here, 
He can compel no one. No man, as to His exter- 
nal life, is in perfect freedom. God would have 
him to be so, but subjects him to control in his ex- 
ternal life, for the sake of his internal life ; but this 
internal is left in perfect freedom. 

There is a vast difference between the measure 
and the kind of outside freedom which one man has 



144 THE HEAVEN OF A BAD MAN 

and that which another man has. And there is an 
equal difference at the different periods of each one's 
life. Because all this is governed and adjusted by 
the interests of the inner life. 

The strong, bad man, by what he thinks his vic- 
tory over circumstances, or because other circum- 
stances placed him above human control, may think 
that he at least has freedom — freedom to do his 
own will, to live only as he chooses in all things. 
He is in his heaven ; but it is a false and imagin- 
ary, and a transitory heaven. Even this world's 
experience is full of lessons that he who is given up 
to the unchecked domination of his own will is the 
slave of a cruel master, who, sooner or later, brings 
him to misery. It was from his own sad experience 
that Byron learned the fearful lesson implied in his 
line : 

"Lord of himself — that heritage of woe ! " 

Very, very different is the freedom of heaven ! 
The angel finds the freedom of his internal nature 
filling out. an equal freedom of his external. And 
why is he thus free ? Because he has learned to 
love to be only that which God desires he should 
be, needing no coercion or control, and having none. 
He is joyfully conscious of his freedom at every 
moment, rejoicing in it most of all because of his 
certainty that it is the gift of his Father. And 



HOW WE MAKE OURSELVES WRETCHED 145 

therefore he knows that it is safe, that it is his — 
his to be eternal, his to grow in fulness and blessed- 
ness while eternity rolls on. 

To be useful, in whatever degree, is to walk with 
Godo Painfully may we reflect, however, on the very 
small degree of usefulness most of us accomplish, 
and consequently what feeble and imperfect com- 
munion we have with Him compared to that which 
we might have. Some one has said, expressively, 
that "our troubles are often God dragging us;" 
that, as a little child, who, when walking with his 
father, pulls at the hand that would lead him so well, 
and thereby makes himself very uncomfortable, so 
we, children of a larger growth, but children always 
of the Eternal, because we will not try to make our 
wills one with His, and will not cooperate with Him, 
make ourselves wretched and miserable thereby. 

In one sense, as I have said, all men walk with 
God — they who do not wish to, as well as those who 
do. For how can men walk, that is, live and act, 
without God, when without Him there can be 
neither action nor life ? But the text about which I 
am writing does more than command us to walk 
with God. It commands us to walk with Him 
humbly. 

When we know, and feel, and rejoice in the feel- 
ing, that from Him is our life and every good 
thought and feeling — all our usefulness, and all our 



146 WHAT THE NEW DISPENSATION TEACHES 

love of usefulness — and all are His before they are 
ours, infinite in Him but finited in us, not unto us 
do we then give the glory of our goodness, but unto 
Him. And that we may be led so to walk is the 
constant effort of the Lord, the constant end of 
every providence to the whole human race, and to 
every individual of that race. 

And so this New Dispensation of truth teaches 
us that from ourselves we are nothing. But that 
from God we may receive and be that which tran- 
scends all imagination, and makes words meaning- 
less, if only we clearly perceive and never forget 
that it is all and constantly from Him. This, it 
tells us, is true and spiritual humility ; and thus it 
tells us why all His requirements are summed up 
in this : " Walk humbly with thy God" 



NEGATIVE RELIGION 147 



XXXI. 

HOW shall we interpret the text, " Many are 
called, but few are chosen ? " That which is 
given by the so-called orthodox, makes this text one 
of the chief supports of their doctrine of " election." 
This doctrine we are taught to deny ; but have we, 
in its stead, a satisfactory meaning of these puzzling 
words ? Nor is this a solitary instance of the ap- 
parently negative religious training some of us have 
had. This may be lamented. To sweep away er- 
rors is admirable ; but if truths are not put in their 
place, we are told most plainly in the Scriptures 
what will come there (Matt. xii. 43-46). " When 
the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh 
through dry places seeking rest, and findeth none. 
Then he saith, I will return into my house from 
whence I came out, and when he is come, he findeth 
it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he and 
taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked 
than himself, and they enter in and dwell there; 
and the last state of that man is worse than the 
first." How expressive is this, "He walketh through 



148 APPARENT 'INCONSISTENCIES OF THE WORD 

dry places seeking rest ! " Dry, indeed, and com- 
fortless is that negative religion, if religion it should 
be called. 

To return to our first text : " Many are called, but 
few are chosen/' Throughout the Scripture, the 
Lord and all His Divine Providence and Action are 
presented in the literal sense, as they seem to us. 
This is what is meant by the eighteenth Psalm, ver- 
ses 25, 26. " With the merciful thou wilt show thy- 
self merciful, with an upright man thou wilt show 
thyself upright, with the pure thou wilt show thyself 
pure, and with the froward thou wilt show thyself 
froward." Hence He is sometimes represented as 
angry, jealous, revengeful, and obdurate. For so 
He seems to the merely natural, and it is well that 
He should seem so to them, that they may, if possi- 
ble, be led to that fear of God which is the begin- 
ning, and only the beginning, of wisdom. In other 
places He is represented as patient and plenteous 
in mercy ; as Love and only Love. These and in- 
numerable other apparent inconsistencies come from 
the fact that the Word is written for and addressed 
to all kinds of men who ever have lived, or ever 
shall live ; and it is accommodated to all in the lit- 
eral sense. Hence the literal sense is as that outer 
garment which was torn in pieces, and divided 
among men by lot, each taking the piece that suits 
his lot ; while the inner sense is woven without 
seam, one throughout. 



WHY MANY ABE CALLED BUT FEW CHOSEN 149 



Where it is said in Matt, xxii. 14, " For many are 
called but few are chosen," those not chosen, or, who 
are rejected, are those spoken of in the preceding 
verse as bound, taken away, and cast into outer dark- 
ness. But why did this lot befall them ? Because 
"they had not a wedding garment." What does this 
mean ? Many indeed are called to the marriage 
supper of our Lord. All are invited there. To all 
are given the means, the truths, which, if they are 
received and obeyed, will lead them there. And 
because the ruling affections of a man are the es- 
sence of the man, and constitute the man, and affec- 
tions clothe themselves in the truths which belong 
to them, he who has not a wedding garment is one 
who has rejected the truths which were given to lead 
him to that supper. He rejected those truths be- 
cause he had not those affections. He loved some- 
thing else, something of an opposite character. And 
this evil affection clothed itself with appropriate fal- 
sity. He had on another garment. It was a gar- 
ment woven of the fibres which led to and favored 
and fostered the loves of evil which ruled within 
him. And it was these fibres which "bound him 
hand and foot," so that he could neither do the 
Lord's will, nor walk in the way of life ; and "took 
him away " from the presence of the Lord ; and 
" cast him into outer darkness," into the thick dark- 
ness which waits upon denial of truth and accept- 
ance of falsehood. 



ISO WHY THEY ARE CHOSEN 

But in Rev. xvii. 14, it is said of those who were 
with the Lord of lords and King of kings, that 
" They that are with Him are called and chosen and 
faithful," and here we may understand these as in- 
cluding all the degrees of goodness of those who are 
with Him. Then the "called" would mean those 
to whom it appears that He calls them. They listen 
to the call, acknowledge its authority, and obey. 
Higher than they are those, who, in their own free- 
dom, choose Him, choose the right because He has 
made it right, and avoid the wrong because it is 
a sin against Him. But highest of all are they who 
are " faith-full ; " so full of faith in Him, that there 
is no room in their minds or hearts for any thought 
or feeling that conflicts with their knowledge of Him, 
that dims their perception of Him, or weakens their 
love for Him. Of the first class are many, of the 
second few, of the third very, very few. 

Then it is said elsewhere (John xv. 16), " Ye 
have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." And 
they who do indeed, in truth and life, choose the 
Lord, learn to see so clearly their own miserable 
weakness and degradation, and the appalling con- 
trast between what they are and what He would 
have them be, that it seems to them as if no part of 
their choice of Him was their own, but all of it His 
work. If they carry this faith into the other world, 
they will there learn the truth ; there only, until now, 



DID PAUL BELIEVE IN PREDESTINATION? 151 

could they learn it. But now, thanks be to God for 
this latest blessing, they may be taught that while 
every element of good in the will or the understand- 
ing comes from Him, and if we are or can be made 
willing to receive it is given to us by His infinite 
love, it is given to be our own, forever our own. 

The text from Romans viii. 29, 30, has no spirit- 
ual sense, and must be taken as it stands. It is one 
of those which compel the belief that Paul, some- 
times at least, believed in election and predestina- 
tion. 



152 THE MINGLING OF THE GOOD AND EVIL 



XXXII. 

YOU may well say, dear friend, that the ways of 
Providence are mysterious. They are "past 
finding out " by you or me, or by any one on this 
earth. And yet " He walks in the light " ; but our 
eyes are not opened to this kind of light. 

Let me try to say a few words to you on this dif- 
ficult topic, nevertheless, for in these days the veil 
seems to be at least partially lifted. Few they will 
be and simple, and perhaps dark, also ; but I think 
I can see a little way on the pathway of truth, and, 
if I can, I may be able to make that little visible to 
you. 

To state the whole difficulty at once and briefly, — 
How shall we account for the good and evil mingled 
in the world, how understand that such a world was 
created by a Being whom we believe to be as con- 
sistent as He is good — " The Father of Lights, with 
whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning " ? 
Ever since men began to think, this must have 
troubled and perplexed them. For before their 
eyes, and in their hearts, and in all their lives, there 



MANICHJEANISM 1 5 3 

was that which by its beauty, pleasantness, and util- 
ity indicated that Love was active in causing it; 
and there was also that, which, by its deformity, the 
pain it caused, and its obstruction or destruction of 
all that seemed good, indicated that something akin 
to hatred was equally active. How shall we explain 
the coexistence of these two hostile elements in the 
government of the world ? 

Many centuries ago there was a system of the 
universe called Manichaeanism, from its supposed 
founder, Manes, which affirmed the coexistence of 
two original powers, one good, the other evil, which 
from the beginning, and always in all things, while 
inconceivably antagonistic, divided between them 
the government of the universe. This system only 
gave form and consistency to what must always have 
been in men's minds. Christianity succeeded in 
suppressing it so far that it ceased to have open 
advocates, or to be the avowed doctrine of any sect. 
But it still lives, and is very potent. 

Common notions about the devil and " the Prince 
of this world," the sense of the inevitableness of suf- 
fering, and of the hostility of the body to the soul, 
and all that expresses itself by asceticism of any 
kind — all these things indicate thoughts or impres- 
sions, which, when they were systematized and 
ripened into a constructed theory, constituted Man- 
ichaeanism ; for they all at least suggest to the mind 



154 THE ERROR OF ORTHODOXY 

that, besides God, there is some other Power which 
opposes and counteracts Him, and which He can- 
not wholly subdue or repress. 

Orthodoxy explained the problem by finding these 
two discordant elements in God Himself. One it 
called His Love, the other His Justice. This it 
supposed to be an element of the Divine nature 
which demanded and would have, and did have, 
complete satisfaction. Orthodoxy held that all the 
suffering of mankind was deserved by them, and was 
inflicted because it was deserved. 

Wherein was Orthodoxy wrong? Certainly not 
in asserting that Justice was an element of the Di- 
vine nature. It must be there, and be perfect and 
irresistible. But the error of Orthodoxy lay in sup- 
posing that Divine Justice was in antagonism to 
Divine Love, or in presenting its working as if it 
were in such antagonism. 

What, then, is the explanation of this problem 
which the New Church offers ? In the first place, 
while it acknowledges the mingling of good and evil 
in the world, it finds these two hostile elements, not 
in two Gods or primal powers, nor yet coexisting in 
one God, but one of them — the good — it finds in 
God, the other — the evil — in man. Therefore this 
Church substitutes for the original problem a new 
one, and it is this. God is omnipotent. He creates 
man and the universe, which is man's home. He 



A SEEMING CONTRADICTION' 155 

governs man and the universe and all things in them 
with more than supreme and sovereign power. He 
governs them with solitary power, for there is no 
other — all the forces in the world, whether spiritual, 
moral, or physical, being derived from Him. How, 
then, are we to account for the existence in God's 
universe of a force, or active element, which is di- 
rectly opposed to Him ? Always hostile to His will, 
if He loves His children, it sometimes even appears 
to gain the upper hand in this deadly conflict, and 
quite to subvert His will. In what way does the 
New Church propose to solve this problem ? It can- 
not even attempt this without going far back and 
beginning with some inquiry into the nature of God. 
What do we know of the nature of God, and how 
can we know anything of it ? Many will say that it 
is quite useless to vex one's self with considering 
such a subject at all ; yes, not only useless, but even 
wrong, for we may fall into fatal errors, and blas- 
pheme holy things. But does not God wish us to 
love Him ? Did He not so love us " that He gave 
for our salvation His Only-begotten Son " ? And 
how can our love grow at all, or even exist, unless 
we have some knowledge of Him ? We can put no 
limit to the flight of thought when it soars upward, 
for if it rises at all above self and the petty con- 
cerns of daily life, it must go far up, even to the 
Highest ! 



156 A CONCEPTION OF GOD 

But that we may try to think rightly and not 
vaguely we go to the Bible ; for we believe that to 
be His Word, His revelation of Himself to man. 
There we learn that God made man in His own im- 
age and likeness. Then we reasonably believe that 
His human creatures bear some resemblance to their 
Father, for this would seem to be implied in the re- 
lation of a Father to His children, of a Creator to 
His creatures. And finally, we cannot help having 
this belief. It may indeed be possible to discard 
from the mind all belief in a God, but it is not pos- 
sible to have any conception of Him unless we draw 
it from ourselves. 

What, then, do we find in man ? Desire, purpose, 
feeling, or affection of some kind we must attribute 
to a man, or we do not think of him as alive. We 
call it motive, and this is well, for it is our motive- 
power. As a whole, we may call it the man's Love. 
It is his Life. It is that which, being taken wholly 
from a man, his life has gone from him. 

Then his love, or affection, or desire becomes 
conscious of itself, and operative in act only by 
thought. For if thought were wholly absent, any 
feeling or affection the man might have would neces- 
sarily be unconscious and inactive. Then if there 
be affection and thought, the man may do some- 
thing ; becoming conscious of power, he puts this 
forth in act or operation. 



UNITY IMPLIES INFINITY 157 

It is these three essential elements of human na- 
ture that we ascribe, and cannot help ascribing, to 
the Divine nature, and are justified in so doing by 
Scripture and by reason. But with this difference : 
in man all these are limited and imperfect; in God 
these attributes are perfect Love, perfect Wisdom, 
perfect Power. He has these, He is these, and they 
constitute Him. 

But again, while Love is in God, the primal cause 
of all causes and all effects, the source whence flows 
forth all power and force, it must be unlimited and 
infinite ; for if there were any other force to limit and 
finite this, that other force would be another God. 
The unity of God implies His infinity. Then among 
the three essential attributes of the Divine nature, 
the Love is the primary and the motive-power of 
all the rest. This has no limit. But the Divine 
thought or Wisdom is itself born from the Divine 
Love, as our thoughts are from our affections. The 
Wisdom of God is only the thought which His Love 
excites, and through that thought the Love becomes 
active. Hence the Divine Wisdom, as it springs 
from the Divine Love, and exists for its sake, must 
necessarily have this limitation — it must be in ac- 
cordance with the Divine Love, instrumental to it, 
and therefore the instrument which it needs and can 
use. 

Still more must the Divine power be subject to 



158 WHAT LOVE IS 

this condition : that it can do only what Love de- 
sires and Wisdom directs. In other words, it must 
always act in conformity w T ith perfect order, as that 
is determined by the ends which God's Love seeks, 
and the methods which His Wisdom gives. 

But the Love of God is perfect. W 7 hat is that 
Love ? what is any love ? Every one knows, in a 
general and indeterminate way, what Love is. Only 
they who have tried to define it know how difficult 
is any definition. There have been many of these, 
but none on the whole so good and satisfactory 
as Swedenborg's. He says that Love is the desire 
that what is one's own should be the other's. We 
may, if we prefer, say that this is not so much a 
definition of love as a description of its effect. It 
certainly is this. If we love any person we desire 
to be with him, to exchange affections, sentiments, 
and opinions with him — to give him all that we pos- 
sibly can, and receive from him what he can give. 
Look at husband and wife. We feel how imperfect 
this relation is, if we see each striving to lay hold 
of and appropriate all it can, whether of means and 
possessions, or of power and dominion ; and we feel 
how true and real is this relation when we see each 
wishing to be the other's, to be so wholly, with no 
reserve and no self-seeking. 

Or look at parent and child. The father seeks to 
give his child all he can. If he be weak and short- 



HOW MAN RECEIVES IT 159 

sighted, he desires to gratify his present wishes with- 
out thought for the future. If he has more fore- 
sight, he may still be so unwise as to toil for " the 
meat that perisheth," for the wealth he would give 
his children, with little other thought. Most men 
labor to give the result of their labor to their chil- 
dren. And if the wise father looks forward, even 
to an unending future, and works to acquire the 
spiritual wealth of truth and goodness, that he may 
communicate them to his child, his love is wiser, but 
may not be more ardent than that of the worldling 
who knows not that there are any other than worldly 
pleasures, and toils for the money to procure these, 
that he may give his fortune to those to whom he 
has given life. 

Wherever we see love we see the desire to give 
what one has or is to the object of the love. And 
we see this in God, in His love ; but in Him it is 
pure, perfect, and infinite. His love is an earnest 
desire to impart Himself. Hence He made man, 
and placed him upon the innumerable earths of the 
universe, that He might have those to whom He 
could impart His own attributes. He gave to man 
a will, into which He might flow with His love, and 
in which His love might become man's love; an 
understanding into which His own wisdom might 
fall, and in which His wisdom might become man's 
thought; and an organization, bodily and mental, 



160 THE EXISTENCE OF GOOD AND EVIL 

into which Divine power might go and become hu- 
man strength. But all this finitely, not infinitely. 
And if the desire of God thus to impart Himself be 
infinite, how can this finite imparting of Himself 
satisfy this desire? Thus — He places innumerable 
human beings upon the innumerable homes He 
builds for them. He gives to them that power of 
propagating the race, which will give forever a con- 
stant enlargement of their number. He makes each 
one of them immortal — and then, most of all, He 
gives to each one the power of receiving from Him, 
more and more largely forever, His gifts of His own 
attributes. 

To this end mankind was created and is governed. 
And when we see how this end or purpose required 
that condition of things from which the mingled 
good and evil of all created things has arisen, then 
we have solved the problem, and reconciled their 
existence with the Divine Love. Let me in my next 
letter try to help you to see this. 



THE ESSENCE OF LOVE 161 



XXXIII. 

I NOW propose, my friend, to try and have you 
see why, if what has been said in the former 
letter be admitted as true, it follows that good and 
evil must be mingled in all things of this world. 
And especially is it to be remembered that God is 
Love, and that this great Love seeks constantly to 
give the best thing it can to the beings it has cre- 
ated, and that this best thing is Himself. 

Then consider carefully this question : Is it not of 
the very essence of love to be free ? In a former 
letter this has been adverted to, but let me now 
place it distinctly before you. It is the essence of 
love to be free. I do not insist that there can be 
no love that is not free. Perhaps it is so ; perhaps 
it may be said that if love be coerced in any way or 
measure, so much of it as is not free is not love, and 
ought not to be called by that name. But it is not 
necessary to assert this — all that need be said is, 
that the best love must be that which is perfectly 
free. Then as the perfect love of God cannot but 
desire that man's love should be the best it can be, 



1 62 THE FREEDOM OF LOVE 

He must desire that it should be perfectly free. 
From this, all the rest follows. 

For if man's love be free, then man must be free 
to love what he will. He must be free to love the 
Lord his God, or to love himself better ; to love his 
neighbor for his neighbor's sake, that is, unselfishly, 
or to love his neighbor for the sake of what he can 
derive from him in the way of selfish gain and en- 
joyment. He must be at liberty to choose between 
these two loves — of the Lord and his neighbor, or 
of himself and the world for the sake of himself. 
If he chooses the former, he will gain all good ; for 
the seed of all good is planted within him and is 
alive. If he chooses the latter, he will gain only 
evil ; for the seed of all evil is planted and living 
within him. 

The subject thus presented to you must suggest 
some difficulties. They may seem many, but they 
all flow from one difficulty — that of comprehending 
the necessity that love should be free, and especially 
that the best and highest love should be most free. 

Probably the darkness which clings about this 
truth will only disappear altogether from any of us 
when the light of experience is cast upon it ; and we 
cannot rejoice in the fulness of this light until we, 
too, have this best and highest love, and rejoice in 
the consciousness that it is our own in freedom, be- 
cause the Father gives it to us to be our own. 



THE LIGHT OF EXPERIENCE 163 

Imagine an angel — and this means a man who 
has become what every man may be — imagine an 
angel who has reached his place in heaven. So long 
as he lived on earth, more or less of earthliness 
clung to him. The propensity to self-love, whose 
assaults made this life a warfare, a continual con- 
flict, but not a continual victory, and darkened his 
brightest days with sins desired, and sometimes with 
sins committed, and made memory painful, and 
sharpened the pain by the consciousness that the 
remembered past was ready at any moment to re- 
peat itself and become a miserable present, all these 
are suppressed. He had chosen good, and it was 
given him. Do not try to imagine, for you cannot, 
the joy he feels at the certainty that he is in heaven ; 
because, taking his Father's hand, He Himself had 
led him thither ; and that it will be his eternal home, 
because that heavenly road passed, through tempta- 
tions resisted and sins repented, into perfect free- 
dom. He does not walk as one whom Omnipotence 
constrains to go aright, but as one to whom light is 
given to see the ways of peace, and strength given 
to walk therein. And oh, what joy ! He to whom 
so much has been given, he can also give ; and that 
love which came, which comes ever, from the Most 
High, flows gratefully back to Him from this angel 
heart. 

This is heaven. It is the certainty of choosing 



1 64 WHAT TRUE FREEDOM IS 

good, and yet making the choice in freedom. Why 
might this not have been the condition of man on 
earth ? If freedom be essential to love, why was it 
necessary that this freedom should be abused ? The 
abuse was not necessary, only the possibility of either 
use or abuse. For freedom so guarded that it can 
walk only in one path, is not freedom. It is an utter 
misuse of words and an offence to reason, to call by 
the name of freedom the power to render obedience 
without the power to disobey. Man might have 
been led to, or born with, a kind of heaven and a 
measure of happiness, without freedom. But surely 
words are not needed to make visible the difference 
between the best heaven of this kind, and the 
heaven which is wholly free, and has been gained 
by choosing in freedom to live a heavenly life, even 
while on the earth. 

Again, the question may recur and trouble you, if 
the happiness of heaven is certain, because the Lord 
may guide and lead one who is there in such wise 
that he shall be sure to choose the good, and yet 
choose it in freedom, why might not man have been 
so constructed that the same thing could have been 
done for him on earth ? Trie answer, in its simplest 
and briefest form, is this : A man is in heaven, be- 
cause he has profited by his freedom on earth, and 
has chosen for himself good rather than evil. This 
he has made his ruling characteristic. He has done 



HOW IT LEADS TO HEAVEN 165 

this, because whatever the Lord did for him, he was 
called upon to do himself his part of the work. 
And he did this part in the strength given to him. 
This strength was given to him so to use aright, or 
to use otherwise, as he saw fit. His freedom in this 
respect was most real, most perfect. And by the 
right use of this freedom, he has enabled the Lord 
to build up in him angelic character. Because the 
Lord had given him this strength to use as he saw 
fit, He gave it to him to be used wrongly, if he pre- 
ferred so to use it. If he could only use it aright, 
and could not use it wrong, or if he had been so 
made that he must of necessity use it aright, he 
would have had no freedom. That he might have 
freedom, he had as much power to do wrong as to 
do right. But he chose to do right, and the result 
was the formation of a character which made it cer- 
tain that he would in this freedom always continue 
to choose good rather than evil. And this is heaven. 
And so it is that the possibility of heaven, and of 
the highest heaven, rests upon the freedom of earth. 
And out of the reality and completeness of that free- 
dom spring the possibility and the actuality of all 
evil. 

You may ask how it is with those who die as chil- 
dren — are they not in heaven ? Certainly, in their 
heaven. But, to be very brief in speaking of what 
lies outside of our present topic, their heaven is not 



1 66 OF THOSE WHO DIE AS CHILDREN 

the same as that of grown people. Swedenborg 
tells us that they have the peculiar discipline suited 
to their needs, and that they are taught by those 
angels who died in their maturity, who are in heaven 
because they overcame their own evil tendencies. 
These immature spirits are permitted to see their 
own evil tendencies, and are helped to contend 
against them and overcome them. They can do this 
because they have not confirmed those tendencies 
by the voluntary choice of evil. They are most 
blessed, and most grateful for the Love which guards 
them constantly, and yet enables them to walk in a 
large measure of freedom. 

Spiritual liberty is the law of the universe. It 
was necessary, and the possibility of its abuse was 
necessary ; but the abuse was not necessary. Nev- 
ertheless this abuse has taken place. As a fact it 
exists. And then the question is : In what way does 
our Father deal with the resulting evil ? This pro- 
digious question is nothing less than the inquiry into 
what are the means and methods by which Infinite 
Love and Wisdom make this evil as little as it can 
possibly be, consistent with human freedom, and 
make those offences which must come, themselves 
the instruments of good. He who does not feel his 
ignorance and impotence before such a question can- 
not understand the question. Nevertheless, there 
are some things which it may not be unwise pre- 
sumption to attempt to say about it. 



MORAL PERSPECTIVE 167 

One thing is this. If we were wiser we should 
set a far higher value on the things of eternity, in 
comparison with the things of time, than we do. 
How very foolish we think that man who sacrifices 
the interests and prosperity of his whole life to a 
day's pleasure. Are we any wiser when we forget 
eternity in the passionate pursuit of pleasure for a 
little lifetime ? But God is wise if we are not, and 
in all His providence constantly regards the things 
of eternity. 

It is well that we cannot now appreciate the abso- 
lute nothingness of this life, in comparison with 
eternal life, for it would destroy all interest in our 
daily occupations. Nor would it be safe for us to 
remember that this life is to that which follows it, 
in the proportion of one to infinity, unless we were 
also wise enough to remember that this one deter- 
mines the character of that infinity. 

I have spoken to you before, I think, of the im- 
portance of learning moral perspective, learning to 
view things in their true proportions and acting ac- 
cordingly. We are sure that before our Lord every- 
thing stands in this true perspective. Nothing is so 
great as to cast the little beyond his care ; nothing 
so small as to be forgotten. It is therefore his con- 
stant effort and purpose to give us, at every moment 
and in every event, all the success and happiness 
we can have, but always only what we can have 



1 68 THE TRUE END OF PUNISHMENT 

without detriment to the interests of eternity. Lives 
there the man who always knows and never forgets 
that whatsoever happens to him — it may be exquisite 
joy, it may be bitter grief — is the very thing which 
Wisdom that cannot mistake sees to be the best 
thing that can come to him, and which unfailing 
Love causes or permits, because it is the best ? 

Is it not well, then, that men should regard the 
sufferings which follow sin as its punishment ? Ex- 
ceeding well — for in one sense it is so. There is no 
vindictive God, but upon sin committed consequences 
wait which are intended to protect the offender and 
others also from the mischief of repeating the wrong. 

This is the true end, and (I say it reverently) the 
only justification of punishment. This truth has 
made its way into human thought, and has much in- 
fluence in regulating the punishments inflicted on 
criminals. We should be wiser if we let this truth 
operate with more force upon our judgment of the 
Divine action. We see this guilty or erring man 
suffer, and we say that is right, he deserves to suf- 
fer ; and so we account for it. But then we see 
suffering fall where we are unable to see that it is 
deserved or where we see that it cannot be deserved, 
as when it comes to the child in the cradle. 

The mistake in all this is in the supposition on 
the one hand that any other power than God's power 
rules ; or, on the other, that Divine power is ever 



THE EFFECT OF SUFFERING 169 

put forth except in love. He never inflicts pain, and 
never permits those who love to inflict it to gratify 
their malignant desire, unless he sees that the pain 
caused may be the means of a blessing which can- 
not otherwise be given. And thus while He does 
not suppress even their life whose life it is to do 
harm, He overrules them in such wise that against 
their will they do good. 

Often a firm conviction that whatever may be their 
apparent character, all things are equally under the 
government of perfect love, enables us to discern 
the good result which is intended to be the effect of 
suffering. Sometimes we even see this distinctly, 
and sometimes, alas ! very dimly. Thus when we 
see the infant convulsed with pain, all that we can 
do is to remember that the poor little thing inherited 
a woful perversion of its inner nature, and that its 
Heavenly Father is even then endeavoring to cure 
the distortions of its soul, and remove the obstruc- 
tions they offer to the reception of happiness from 
Him. If the baby lives, every tear that it sheds 
now will save it many. If it dies, it will grow up 
into greater happiness in heaven because of the suf- 
fering endured in its momentary sojourn on earth. 
How is this done ? We know not. But we may 
understand enough of the nature of God, and the 
working of His providence, to be certain that it 
must be so, and in that certainty to find comfort. 



170 THE WORK OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE 

Infinitely diversified are the means which Divine 
Providence uses, and the methods of its action. For 
how various are the wants it would supply, the weak- 
ness it would help, the blindness it would enlighten, 
the paths of wandering and woe from which it would 
lead, the sins it would cleanse by the purifying 
waters of repentance. And, oh, greatest of mar- 
vels ! the adaptation of the work to the need of each 
human being is as precise and perfect as if that 
need were the only object of Divine mercy. 

I think no one who has had anything of what we 
call "the experience of life," no one who has been 
led to notice how the Lord dealt with him, especially 
during the sadder parts of that experience (for in 
joy we are more apt to forget the dealings of Provi- 
dence), can have failed to observe the wonderful 
manner in which strength has been given to bear 
some quite unexpected burden ; how his bodily and 
mental frame become gradually adapted to changes 
of circumstances ; how the very friends, the very 
scenes, the very books, come to him when he most 
needs them ; and how when all this tender care is 
bestowed upon him at every moment, myriads of 
others, all the rest of God's creatures in fact, are 
under the same perfect guardianship. 

And how it can be so arranged (it is a poor word, 
but we have only human modes of expression for 
subjects quite transcendent), that the same event 



EACH ONE HAS WHAT HE NEEDS 171 

which brings joy to one heart and utter woe to 
another, should have the double capacity of bringing 
to each what each needed above aught else for their 
eternal good — is not this a constant and ever-in- 
creasing miracle ? 

I remember that when, as a child, I read in the 
Sermon on the Mount that the Lord caused " His 
sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and His 
rain to fall on the just and on the unjust," it seemed 
to me very beautiful, this image of a universal love 
that sent blessings everywhere lavishly, and was will- 
ing to have the poor sinners enjoy them, whether 
they deserved them or not; but how much more 
beautiful is this same verse to me now, when I be- 
lieve that it is not a question of deserts, for none 
deserve anything, but because God is so wise as well 
as so loving that the sunbeams and rain-drops 
always fall in just the right spots ; and that every 
one of these good and these evil men receive these 
blessings for some special reasons which we cannot 
always understand, but can feel sure to be all tend- 
ing to that heavenly happiness which our Father has 
ever in view for us. 

Among our dear friends we may have one whom 
we always regard as the dearest . and the most at- 
taching, and why? Because we never go to him 
with any joy or sorrow without his immediately 
making it his own, or without his apparently taking 



172 HIS MERCY NEVER SLEEPS 

the deepest interest in it ; because in ordinary con- 
versation one feels, for the time being at least, that 
one has chosen the very subject he cares most 
about, and that he is entirely congenial. And yet 
we know that this cannot always be exactly the 
case ; we know that it is sometimes only a pleasant 
appearance. We feel grateful, however, even for 
this appearance, for a kind motive prompts the illu- 
sion. Now having begun at this lowest step of the 
ladder, what think you of the considerate and adap- 
tive love of our friend, elevated till it becomes, not 
the kind appearance only, but the blessed reality, of 
a perfectly sympathizing and strengthening love, a 
protecting providence for every living creature ! 

From the first moment of our existence, through 
eternity, this unsleeping mercy watches over us. If 
it can, it will help us "to dash their little ones 
against the stones ; " to dash the little ones of 
Babylon — sins while yet they are only the germs of 
evil, only sins in thought — against the truths which 
rebuke and expose, and have power to overcome 
them. If this cannot be, if the prodigal will take 
the living into his own hands and depart from his 
Father's house, he is permitted to do so, to waste 
the very substance of his life ; until, when the low- 
est degradation has been reached, Divine mercy is 
able to inspire a consciousness of where and what 
he is, and a wish to leave the swine with whom he 



DIVERSITY OF OUR LORD'S PROVIDENCES 173 

lives and the husks on which he feeds, and return 
to his Father. And then that Father meets him, 
"while yet a great way off," and supports his falter- 
ing footsteps until they reach his Father's house. 
Verily, in that house are many mansions, and to 
each one its own way leads. The bruised reed is 
never broken, the smoking flax is never quenched ; 
and let there be in the heart one morsel, one frag- 
ment of true repentance for sin and true love to- 
ward God, and He who has personally known all 
that can be known of human temptations will " gather 
up the fragments that nothing be lost." 

Infinitely diversified are the providences of our 
Lord ; but, through them all, there is the constant 
preservation of our spiritual freedom. Nothing can 
happen to us, nothing great or small, nothing counted 
upon or unexpected, nothing pleasant or painful, 
that will lift us from where it found us, unless we 
will that it should. It may, and often does, without 
our knowledge or consent, exert a beneficial influ- 
ence, so far as this : it may bring us into a condition 
in which it is far easier for us to give up our self- 
confidence and yield voluntarily to spiritual influ- 
ences, than it could have been otherwise. Much of 
the work of Divine Providence, and much that is 
most painful to us, is of this kind. The strong man 
armed, whose goods are in peace, must be overcome 
by one who is stronger than he, "who taketh from 



174 WHEN WE ARE NOT FREE 

him all the armor in which he trusted." But while 
this is true, all work of this kind is only prepara- 
tory. The question still remains, whether we will 
profit by it. This question we answer when the 
time has come for us to choose whom we will serve. 
In times of tribulation and oppression we are not 
free. The loss of health, or of wealth, or of friends, 
or some other sorrow, has smitten us ; and we feel 
that we deserve it and more. We see the need of 
repentance ; we make good resolutions ; we even 
utter a prayer for strength to keep them — but the 
prayer is little else than a cry for relief from suffer- 
ing. Presently we are restored to ourselves. Our 
freedom which was suspended is revived. Are we 
now willing to profit by our past experience ? We 
may if we will, for our bonds are broken. But will 
we? We cannot stand still, even if we fancy we 
do ; unconsciously we drift back every moment that 
we do not go forward. Which path shall it be then ? 
That which our Father has pointed out, or that which 
leads back through the old infirmities and evils, thus 
making vain his efforts to save us ? Infinitely di- 
versified are the ways of Providence, but they ail 
converge upon one point. Ever and ever does our 
Lord seek to lead, never to compel, but always to 
lead us to a more full and unperverted reception of 
His own life in our freedom. For that is heaven. 
In heaven, the certainty that our freedom will never 



THE PURPOSE OF PERFECT LOVE 175 

more be abused comes from the fact that the one 
end of all the workings of the Divine Providence 
has been so far attained that a character has been 
built up which will make this perversion and abuse 
impossible. Therefore, in this life, where the foun- 
dation of permanent character is built, that freedom 
is given with all its liability to be abused, and with 
the actual abuse of it which is the source of all evil. 
The heavens are guarded from this abuse, not be- 
cause coercive Omnipotence prevents it, but because 
perfect love is able there to accomplish its great 
purpose of founding eternal happiness upon eternal 
freedom. 



176 WHAT THE NEW CHURCH OFFERS 



XXXIV. 

IT is often said to me : " We could pardon you for 
entertaining the views you do if you did not 
claim so much ; you call your religion a consummat- 
ing religion. Now, no one who has pondered, how- 
ever little, on the progress of human thought in the 
past, can, reasoning from analogy, help predicting 
similar progress in the future, and in a future stretch- 
ing on to eternity. How, then, can you dare to put 
a limit to this ever-active mind of humanity, and 
say, ' thus far and no farther shalt thou go ? ' " 

It would certainly be not only very daring, but 
very wrong, if I did say this ; but, it is just because 
this New Church, this New Jerusalem coming down 
from heaven, contains in itself all possibilities of ad- 
vancement toward God — and surely we do not wish 
to advance in any other direction — because it not 
only imposes no limits or barriers, but insists upon 
freedom, because its truths though great are very 
simple, and yet capable of an infinite expansion, that 
I do believe it to be " consummating.' ' 

All religions are accommodated to the state and 



THE MYSTERY OF GODLIKENESS IJJ 

needs and capabilities of men. At length our Lord 
came Himself upon earth ; came by assuming the 
humanity which needed reformation from its very 
inmost, and by His work in that humanity redeemed 
men. 

Of the doctrines of our church which tell you how 
that work was done, I will not write now. It is 
enough to say that in the system of religion founded 
on His coming, while enough was said and shown 
to win love and worship for Him who had become 
visibly " God with men," yet over all a veil was 
spread in mercy to the dim and weak eyes which too 
much light would have made blind. But this reli- 
gion did its work, and made it possible for more. 
And then a last, a final religion has been given, and 
the veil which was spread over all nations has been 
taken away — so far taken away that truths and prin- 
ciples are given which go to the centre of all truth. 
They are given to feeble men, who can receive and 
comprehend them only very imperfectly. And be- 
cause they are capable, if fully understood, of bring- 
ing into their own light all the questions which have 
been or ever can be asked, this process of applying 
them to solve "the mystery of godliness," or, to 
spell the word as it once was spelt, the mystery of 
godlikeness, must be in the first place slow and 
gradual, and in the next place eternal. A slow 
process, for only a few desire to receive these truths, 



178 PROGRESS SLOW BUT ETERNAL 

and these few are hardly able yet to make other 
than elementary and very general applications of 
them. An eternal progress, because the approach 
of the finite to the infinite, with the happy con- 
sciousness of this advance, may never end, although 
the infinite will never be reached. 



WHY SOME PEOPLE GO TO CHURCH 179 



XXXV. 

AN excellent woman said to me as we came out 
of church this morning, with an expressive 
shrug of the shoulders accompanying the remark, 
" Oh, how dreadfully wicked the sermon today made 
us all feel ! I don't see what people preach such 
sermons for ! " One could hardly help smiling at 
the latter part of her remark, and yet it was after 
all the very feeling with so many people. They go 
to church to hear pleasant, soothing things, to have 
an agreeable sense of their own goodness ; not to 
have old wounds opened afresh, and their eyes 
opened to their own sinfulness, their utter poverty 
and need of help. "Why," continued my friend, 

" does not good Mr. continue his series of 

doctrinal sermons ? He does that so beautifully ; 
his style is so clear, it is really an intellectual treat ; 
for instance the discourse he gave us last Sunday on 
the divinity of our Lord ? " I was silent, but fell to 
thinking somewhat in this wise. What good does it 
do us to believe in the divinity of our Lord, if we do 
not let Him when He girds Himself with His hu- 



THE FREEDOM OF BIRDS 



manity wash us clean therewith ? And we do this 
when we so love our Father and Saviour that we 
hate our sins, our dirt, and are eager to have Him 
wash not " our feet only, but our hands and our 
head ; " and in all our life have the thought of Him 
underlying every other, so that it makes us shrink 
with dismay when we are tempted to the wrong-doing 
which is all we can do to give Him pain. 

The robins have been with us now for a week or 
two, and are such welcome guests ! They bring cheer 
to our hearts, while they rebuke us gently, by their 
joyful singing, for our own complaints at the long, 
persistent winter, lapping over into spring, and wrap- 
ping the earth even now with such a thick mantle of 
snow as will require a week longer to melt. The 
birds sing of hope, and so does the river behind the 
garden which is now rushing along most joyously, 
working as hard as it can in the service of Spring, 
for it carries away on its bosom great cakes of ice, 
and now they come so thick and fast it is like a little 
fleet of boats. As I sit watching the river and the 
birds, I think with a sigh, after all it is no wonder 
they both seem so happy — for how free they are; 
contrasting their condition with my own, who am 
kept in the house by the intolerable state of the 
roads. But, after all, have I not the advantage? 
For, even with the body tied to one spot, thought 



THE FREEDOM OF MAN 181 

can take longer flights than the much-travelled robin 
ever dreamed of. And so I sit and muse, and at 
last the musing becomes thoughts, and so I will try 
to give them to you. They are on an old subject 
and one of which I have talked to you before, but 
its very name implies its boundlessness — it is free- 
dom, the thought which the birds and the river 
suggested. You sent me once a list of the difficul- 
ties you had in relation to this matter, and when I 
wrote about it before, not having your letter by me, 
I may not have responded satisfactorily. 

These were your troubles. If freedom is, as you 
infer from some things you have read, caused by, 
and founded upon, equilibrium, or the equal strength 
of motives coming from above and from beneath, is 
not hell necessary to freedom ? If so, how was it 
with man before the fall ? There being no hell, 
there could be no equilibrium of these opposing 
motives — how could he have any freedom ? If he 
had none, how could he fall ? or how could he incur 
guilt by falling ? Then if freedom depend upon 
equilibrium, it cannot be perfect, unless that is per- 
fect ; and if it be perfect must not the man rest in 
utter inaction, because any influence which would 
move him in any direction is exactly counterbal- 
anced and paralyzed by some equal and opposing 
influence.? And if he can act because the equilib- 
rium is not quite perfect, but one motive stronger 



1 82 FREEDOM IS TWOFOLD 

than the other, does he not, after all, only obey the 
strongest motive, and where is his self-action ? where 
his freedom ? 

This is a formidable list of difficulties. But you 
are not the only one whom they have troubled, and 
I think I can help you somewhat. Not a perfect 
solution can I give you, leaving behind it no ques- 
tion which can be asked, and no penumbra of doubt. 
That kind of solution will never come here or here- 
after. I hope you will find forever, that the answers 
to the questions which you ask will suggest still fur- 
ther questions, and that the further answers may 
lead you forever forward in a radiant pathway, for 
it leads to the source of light. 

Freedom is the ability to choose one thing or 
another thing, and to do what one chooses. It is 
of two kinds. Man, being both natural and spirit- 
ual, has the freedom belonging to nature and that 
belonging to spirit. His natural or physical free- 
dom is confined within narrow limits, because he 
can always imagine and desire many things which 
he cannot do. But always he can turn himself 
whither he will, and go in what direction he would, 
although he may not be able to go as far as he 
would. Only when disease has brought him very 
near to death, can he wholly lose this freedom. 

As the soul corresponds to the body, so spiritual 
liberty corresponds to physical liberty. It always 



ITS SOURCE IN MAN, THE IORD 183 

exists, and within certain limits is complete. But a 
man can no more become an angel at once, by one 
volition or moral act, than he can take a step a mile 
forward. But he can look upwards or downwards, 
he can go on the right or the wrong road, so far as 
he goes at all, at his own freedom. And only when 
spiritual disease has brought him to spiritual death, 
can he wholly lose this freedom. 

What, then, does this freedom come from — what 
is its source, its primary cause ? Certainly not equi- 
librium. This balance of the forces which, from 
above and from below, strike upon him and pene- 
trate his life, is by the Divine mercy watchfully pre- 
served, that his free agency may not be suppressed 
or lost, as it would be by the too great preponder- 
ance of any of the influences which form the atmos- 
phere in which he lives. This the equilibrium be- 
tween these influences does for him ; but it could no 
more create or cause his freedom, than it could cre- 
ate or cause him. 

To answer the question, Whence cometh freedom ? 
I must refer you to the origin of human life. The 
Lord alone is Life, and He creates man such that His 
own life may flow into man, His love into man's 
will, and His wisdom into man's understanding, and 
become man's life. All this you are familiar with. 
But I remind you of it, that you may be ready for 
the next step, which is, that the Divine life thus 



1 84 GOD IS PERFECT FREEDOM 

flowing into man is given him by God to be owned 
by man, and to make him himself. 

You will tell me that I have told you this before, 
and you have read it elsewhere. But I want you to 
take into your mind the full force of the statement. 
Few people, I think, do. No one is independent of 
God, for he lives only by God's life flowing inces- 
santly into him. But he is not a lesser, or a partial, 
or an imperfect God, because this life becomes his 
own, and so he becomes a perfectly distinct being, 
though at the same time an utterly dependent one. 
If God's will flowing into man continued to be there 
God's will, man could only obey. His every motive 
would be his Creator's, and not his. He would not 
be himself. And yet God's will is in his will as the 
only life and motive power. How, then, can man be 
himself? By the fact that God's will, when in man, 
becomes man's own will. And it is given to man for 
his own possession, that so it may become human 
and not divine. 

I dwell on this truth, and present it under many 
aspects, because only so far as you fully apprehend 
it, can you see the thing I would say. It is this. 
Human freedom springs from a man's owning of his 
life. God must have infinite and perfect freedom. 
One who does not believe this, does not believe that 
God is a person, or, in other words, does not believe 
that there is any God. To call the universe God, is 



THE SELFHOOD OF MAN 185 

only to give to the universe another name. It means 
nothing. If God be a person, He must be free : 
for there can be nothing stronger than He is ; that 
is, perfect freedom must be an element of His life. 
And when His life flows into man, this element is 
not severed from the others and left behind. 

Perhaps we may better understand this owning of 
his life by every man, if we keep in mind this un- 
questionable purpose of God in creating man. As- 
suming only that He is love, then it must be certain 
that His motive was the desire to make a being 
whom He could make happy. Then it must be plain 
that the happiest created being is he who is most 
like his Creator. And he must be most like his 
Creator who loves as He loves, who is like Him in 
freedom, and, in the consciousness of a distinct per- 
sonality, constantly exerts that love in the activities 
which it prompts. If the progress in good, in love, 
and therefore in the happiness of such a being, ends 
in absorption into his Creator, w r hat can this be but 
his death, his extinction, his nothingness as a per- 
sonal being? And by this extinction the work of 
the Creator comes to an end, His purpose is totally 
frustrated. But what possible end of the best life 
can there be, but this absorption into the infinite, 
unless man has and will hold forever, a self-hood 
which belongs to him, which is his own, and will 
never be lost nor taken away. 



1 86 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH 

It is easy to say that evil originates in the abuse 
of freedom. But it is not easy to see this, or under- 
stand it, or really believe it ; and on no subject have 
men been lost in more utter darkness. The main 
cause of this difficulty is an ignorance as to what 
life is. Men trace back all acts to their motives, 
and these motives to their causes, and these to 
theirs, and carry the chain far backward, and they 
come to the conclusion that but for its cause that 
effect could not have come, and that cause could not 
but produce that effect — and so there is no real 
freedom, and nothing, in fact, but this inexorable 
and unending chain of cause and effect ; that is, they 
come to this conclusion intellectually, all the while 
knowing, and constantly acting upon the knowledge 
that they are free agents. 

Why is it that they thus deny intellectually, and 
as they think logically, the free agency of man ? It 
is because they see that matter is at rest unless acted 
upon by some cause which operates upon it from 
without itself ; and this cause is set going by some 
other cause — and this indefinitely. It is so, it is 
just so, because matter is dead. But they do not 
see that it belongs to life to have the capacity of 
self-action ; and that this is precisely what distin- 
guishes between life and death. These subtle rea- 
soners fail to see this, because they are thinking only 
of what is dead. And if they think of life, and 



THE DESCENT AND ASCENT OF LIFE 187 

find they cannot investigate its nature by methods 
which are right when applied to that which is not 
and has not life, then some among them think that 
life is only a form of material force not yet under- 
stood, and the wiser among the unwise say it is an 
unfathomable mystery. 

But what is life ? God is life. He alone. And 
He imparts His life to His universe that it may be. 
Down to the abyss of being, where no life seems to 
be, His life goes to form matter, and becomes the 
force which constitutes matter ; and then among all 
the forms and particles of matter, becomes and acts 
as what are called chemical forces. It ascends to 
the vegetable world, and here man first uses the 
word life. In the tree it is the force which gathers 
from matter, using all chemical forces, its food and 
nutriment. It is determined in its action by the in- 
most nature of the tree, which it had formed for that 
end. And yet, even here, in the power of vegeta- 
bles to accommodate themselves to circumstances, 
we see a semblance of self-determination. Then life 
ascends to the animals, who live as we do, and, as 
some think, just as we do ; and it becomes the force 
which, besides the vegetable power of gathering and 
assimilating food, has the added power of muscular 
action, and the thought necessary to determine this 
action, and no more. 

And life ascends to man ■ to him who is at the 



1 88 THE FIRST MAN HAD FREEDOM 

summit of created being, because he is in the image 
and likeness of God. Here, too, infinite life is 
flnited for its recipient ; but not maimed or imper- 
fect, and not leaving behind it any of its elements, 
for all are there the image and likeness of what they 
are in Him. And therefore this life has, besides the 
capacity of the plant and the animal, the capacity 
of far higher thought and feeling, and also the con- 
sciousness of self — this is divine life made human. 

It has formative and directive energy, choice and 
free self-determination. It is placed in the hands of 
man to be dealt with as he will, to become whatever 
he chooses to make it to be. If dead matter has no 
power of its own, and vegetables can grow but can- 
not move, and animals can change their place, to 
man is given the higher, the consummating power, 
to change his state. To this end man has freedom. 

And now let us return to the list of difficulties at 
the beginning of this letter, and see how I have an- 
swered the questions you proposed. 

First, is hell necessary to freedom ? Certainly it 
is, if freedom be caused by, and founded upon equi- 
librium ; but if it be otherwise, certainly not. The 
first man living on earth, before there were any 
heaven or hell from earth, would have had ample 
and complete freedom because he was a living man, 
and had, as his human life, divine life made human 
with all its elements. So long as none chose evil 



THE BEGINNING OF HELL 189 

instead of good, only a heaven would be formed 
from those who left this earth. 

But all influences from heaven seek to give free- 
dom, and not to take it away ; to strengthen it, and 
not to impair it ; and surely there was no need of 
hell to balance them. As soon as any chose evil, 
and carried into the other world a character formed 
by this choice, hell began. It could not but seek to 
exert an influence of evil. Then the influences from 
heaven were necessarily so modified and adjusted as 
to equilibrate the influence of hell, and preserve 
man's freedom. And to the question, How did man 
fall ? the answer is, By exerting his free agency to 
choose evil rather than good ; for this is the only 
way in which man ever can fall. 

In answer to your third question, about a complete 
equilibrium necessarily producing inaction, I would 
say this. We can hardly suppose that the balance 
of motives from exterior influences is ever perfect. 
But if it were so, then man, by virtue of his life as 
man, would have a perfect free agency, and could 
choose easily between these influences. Seldom is 
this the case. Sometimes, indeed, man is permitted 
to be strengthened and comforted by strongly pre- 
dominating heavenly influence, and then it is indeed 
easy to be good. But he does not appropriate this 
good and make it a part of himself, unless he con- 
firms it, when in a later state he is left more to him- 
self. 



190 THE SOFTENING INFLUENCE OF ILLNESS 

Have you not often noticed what we call the 
" softening influence " of illness ? This is one of 
the providences of God that seem to me especially 
beautiful. While sickness is in itself an undeniable 
evil — which we have brought upon ourselves, or have 
by inheritance — the loving Father stands there by 
us, ready to turn this evil into a great blessing if we 
will only let him. And for a little while he takes 
away our freedom to do wrong, and often even to 
think wrong ; and sets open a little wider that gate 
of heaven whence come all good and holy influences 
to us. Behold a golden opportunity ! which, never- 
theless, is often lost, because, when bodily strength 
returns, our freedom is given back to us, and then 
if we do not gratefully seize the good which has 
been held out to us, if on the other hand we delib- 
erately choose to go back to the old ways, it is all 
of no avail — the opportunity has gone. 

Often, very often, the balance of forces inclines 
the wrong way. Evil influences which reach man 
through his acquired or inherited character, are very 
strong. It may seem to him that he is deserted, and 
that all good things have fled far away, leaving him 
to destruction. 

But this is never so. They may retreat into the 
inner recesses of his own mind and heart, perhaps 
too far for consciousness to reach them ; but there 
they give strength, there they fight for him, and with 



THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS 191 

him, against his enemies. But they know that he 
can overcome the forces of evil only by resisting 
them in his own free agency, and they therefore 
leave him to do this work for himself. They take 
care that however the balance may incline towards 
evil, it shall never incline so far, or with so much 
weight, that he cannot resist it. Angels minister 
unto him, as they ministered unto our Lord in those 
temptations which included all that are possible to 
man. But the Lord did His own Divine work none 
the less because angels ministered unto him. 



I9 2 MAN A FREE AGENT 



XXXVI. 

LET me write to you today more about freedom. 
Conscience certifies irresistibly to every man, 
in spite of all false logic, that he is a free agent. 
No man ever sinned without having some sense of 
guilt, however this may have been afterwards weak- 
ened or suppressed ; and no man ever saw another 
man sin, without some feeling that the sinner was in 
fault. That there is a constant and enormous abuse 
of free agency through the world and the ages is 
certain, and that enormous evil has resulted there- 
from is also certain. The difficulty is not here. It 
comes at the next step. If all evil springs from the 
abuse of freedom, and God be the Giver of free- 
dom, is not He the cause of evil ? To state this 
difficulty more plainly, let me suppose a devil saying 
to an angel : " Why am I down here and you up 
there ? where is the justice in our different dooms ? " 

The angel answers : " You are there because you 
abused your free agency and chose evil." 

"Then," says the devil, "who gave me this free- 
dom ? Was it not God, and should not He be an- 
swerable for the consequences ? " 



FREEDOM LIABLE TO ABUSE 193 

" No," answers the angel. " For you might have 
used your freedom differently, and so escape the 
consequences of your abuse of it." 

"Yes," says the devil; "I might or I might not. 
But, because I had this freedom I had at least an 
equal power of abusing it to my infinite detriment. 
If a father gave his young child gun-powder, with 
many lessons to be careful of it, and the child ex- 
ploded it to his own great harm, upon whom should 
the weight of punishment fall ? upon whom would 
fall the weight of blame in all men's minds — on the 
father, or the child ? " 

I believe I have presented the difficulty as plainly 
as I can. The conclusion the devil comes to, is 
that which, as the records of all philosophy and re- 
ligion assure us, many men have reached in all ages. 
What is the answer ? 

Let us first establish the fact that freedom is 
necessarily liable to abuse — that it is not freedom 
unless it is so liable. It should not be difficult to 
see this plainly. Can a man be said to have full 
freedom to go anywhere, when it is not possible for 
him to go in any other than one direction ? Imagine 
a man imprisoned in a cell. No one would call him 
free. The door is opened, and it is said to him, 
" Your imprisonment is ended ; go forth ; you are 
free." Then imagine he goes only into a narrow 
path, bounded by walls he cannot climb, reaching 



194 THE HIGHEST CONCEIVABLE HAPPINESS 

onwards indefinitely. Is he free, or is that narrow 
path only an extension of his imprisonment ? But 
I am trying to make plainer that which is itself the 
plainest and the simplest thought of which our minds 
are capable. For it is impossible to attach any 
meaning whatever to the word "freedom," without 
including in it all that goes to make up the meaning 
of the phrase that is synonymous with it — and that 
is, "free agency." 

But this leaves the difficulty untouched. For if 
freedom must inevitably include the possibility of 
complete abuse, with all resulting mischief, this only 
gives added force to the question, Why did God give 
to men this perilous gift ? 

To this question we have an answer that is con- 
clusive and satisfactory in the measure in which we 
see that unless God gave man liberty He could not 
give him any other blessing. He bestows life and 
enjoyment upon the lower animals, but who calls 
these things blessings ? And He could give nothing 
more to man, unless He gave him freedom. 

A far deeper and far better answer remains to be 
given. Gather it if you will from what I have here- 
tofore written to you. No conceivable happiness 
can be compared with that of the man who by his 
own act, not in independence of God, but in a free 
and voluntary cooperation with God, chooses a life 
which will forever and forever bring him nearer 
and yet nearer to the likeness of his Father. 



ABUSE OF GOOD BRINGS MISERY 195 

Just now I supposed a conversation between an 
angel and a devil, in which the latter compared the 
gift of freedom from God to man, to a father's giv- 
ing gunpowder to his child. Let me suggest a dif- 
ferent comparison, A father gives food to his child, 
and with all the instruction he can give, and all the 
precaution he can take, the child will sometimes 
make himself sick by it. Shall the father withhold 
food and let the child starve to death, that he may 
not be ill from the abuse of food ? So it is with 
dress, education, recreation, and whatever else a 
father can give his child. Every one of these is 
liable to abuse, and all abuse of good brings mis- 
chief. Shall he then withhold all these, or, if they 
are not rightly used, shall the result be ascribed to 
the father ? It is true that he might keep his child 
in one room, clothe him with strong and sufficient 
garments suited to the weather, feed him with care- 
fully adjusted measures of selected food, and keep 
him from the out-door air lest he take cold, and from 
the sunshine lest he be heated, and from all knowl- 
edge lest it be abused — but would this be the work 
of a good parent ? 

What, then, is the difference between the suppo- 
sition I have put into a devil's mouth, and my own ? 
Just this. A father should not give his child gun- 
powder, because, while it is dangerous, it is not ne- 
cessary to the child ; in no way, and for no good 



196 FREEDOM ESSENTIAL TO SPIRITUAL LIFE 

purpose, can the child need it. The father has no 
reason for exposing him to this peril, and therefore 
the peril and the mischief resulting from it may rea- 
sonably be referred to the father, and held to indi- 
cate his want of love or of wisdom. Not so, how- 
ever, with food. This a good parent must give in 
despite of its possible danger. And why ? Because 
if he did not, he would, for the sake of avoiding a 
danger, bring upon his son the certainty of death. 
And freedom is as essential to spiritual life, as food is 
necessary to bodily life. 

If the objection returns, Why is man created such 
that no good thing can be given him which is abso- 
lutely safe? the answer is, that man, constructed 
just as he is, may by means of freedom rise to the 
utmost happiness which a created being can possess ; 
and to a higher, a far higher happiness than he could 
possess if he had no freedom. Still it may be said 
that all this answer to the objection that, as the 
author of freedom, God is also the author of evil, 
rests upon the supposition that, without freedom, 
none of the blessings which make the happiness of 
heaven could be given. Is this certain ? 

No words could make this truth visible to him who 
does not know by experience what it is to resist his 
own proclivity to wrong, and choose the right. But 
with every effort to do this, the mental eye grows 
stronger, and veil after veil is borne away. Only 
when the work is done, and we stand with those 






OF THOSE WHO DIE IN INFANCY 197 

who are in heaven, shall we see, as clearly as we 
now see the sunshine at noon, what freedom is, and 
how by its rightful exercise we can open our hearts 
to our Father — open them widely to the ever- 
streaming radiance of light and warmth. Let it not 
be supposed that the angels look upon their fall from 
goodness and happiness as impossible. They know 
on the contrary that if they were not constantly up- 
held by their Father, it would be certain ; but in the 
covert of his wings they feel safety and peace. 

In a former letter I spoke of those who die in 
infancy, and said that their heaven was a different 
one from that of those who had lived to be tempted, 
and to resist temptation. They grow up in heaven 
and reach the beauty and the strength of youth. 
They become men, but they are always childlike 
men. We must "receive the kingdom of heaven as 
a little child.' ' None can receive it otherwise. But 
we must then, if years be granted us, let the life 
thus planted in the soil of childhood grow into the 
manhood of regeneration. 

Their state is heavenly, but in what way, we may 
form some idea by comparing the innocence of 
childhood with the innocence of regenerated age. 
Angels they are, but not such angels as have borne 
the labor and heat of the day, and through the toils, 
the trials, the conflicts, and the victories which 
earthly life permitted, have grown into " the meas- 
ure of a man, that is, of an angel." 



198 TIME AND SPACE PRODUCTS OF THOUGHT 



XXXVII. 

I DO not recollect a single instance of any great 
difficulty in understanding any statement of Swe- 
denborg concerning the facts or appearances of 
another life, which may not be traced to the diver- 
sity between time and space in this world, and time 
and space in that world. We are told that they both 
exist there, and from the idea of space and its lim- 
itations come the ideas of shape, of distance, of 
motion from place to place, and the like. But Swe- 
denborg tells us that there they are only appear- 
ances. They may be called so here, for they are 
not entities or beings in themselves. They are prod- 
ucts of thought. They are caused by the constitu- 
tion of the human mind, and they adapt the mind 
to the world around it, as to its fitting home and in- 
strument, and only by careful investigation into their 
origin and nature do w r e become aware that they are 
only appearances or forms of thought. But in that 
world they are seen and known to be only appear- 
ances. In this world space and time are fixed and 
vested in the indurated and unyielding substance 



WHAT THE WORLD OF SPIRITS IS 199 

which we call matter, and being so fixed they control 
us and our thoughts and actions. It is not so in 
that world. There they are also ultimated in sub- 
stance, but it is spiritual substance. This, unlike 
matter, is yielding and plastic. It assists thought 
and action, but does not control them. On the con- 
trary, thought and will control space and time. 

I have spoken in former letters only of our per- 
manent homes in the other world. But as all kinds 
of men live together here, so in almost every man 
there is a mingling of diverse qualities. All those 
which oppose his true character, or the prevailing 
love of his life, must be removed or suppressed be- 
fore he is ready to take his place in his permanent 
home. This work is done in the first few years after 
death. While it is going on, men live in a condition 
which Swedenborg calls "the World of Spirits." 
This is to them as much a place as this world is to 
us. The work to be done there is analogous to the 
work we should do here, in so far as it is a changing 
of the man from what he is to what he is to be. 
Not quite the same, however ; for it is not a change 
of the essential principles of his character, but a 
liberation of them from all discordant and opposing 
influences. That world also is analogous to this, 
but not the same ; for the essential difference be- 
tween spiritual laws and substance and material 
laws and substance is in full force there. It is ob- 



200 WORLD OF SPIRITS RESEMBLES THIS 

vious, however, that the greater resemblance between 
that world and this, must make it easier to describe 
for us, and easier for us to understand, the things of 
that world than the things of heaven. Hence the 
great majority of Swedenborg's descriptions refer to 
the world of spirits. It is well to remember this ; 
for it is not always stated by him, though generally 
apparent on examination. 



SWEDENBORCS LIFE AND CHARACTER 201 



XXXVIII. 

YOU tell me that you have been reading with 
much interest the Life of Swedenborg, and I 
am very glad. You are quite right about his appar- 
ent want of sympathy with low and poor people. It 
is obvious from many things ; but not, I think, from 
the circumstance that he mentions only those who 
are distinguished in some way. Of such people he 
gives the names, to give point and force to what he 
says of them ; but he quite often speaks of conver- 
sations and dealings wdth persons whom he does not 
name ; and quite often, some instances I remember 
particularly, the indications are plain that they were 
of an humble and ignorant class, but good, truth- 
hearing people. I rather think that through life he 
had very narrow social relations ; and that they were 
confined to the higher ranks, with whom he had for 
a large part of his life close business connections, 
and scholars. He was always very busy, loved study 
better than any thing else, and was a recluse by 
character and taste, as well as by habit. I have some- 
times felt as if I could have been content if there 



2 02 SWEDENBORG OFTEN MISREPRESENTED 

were more in the life and personality of Swedenborg 
which could not be approved, because it would have 
guarded us better against making the church in any 
way dependent on his personality. But then, on the 
other hand, such things would have obstructed the 
reception of the truths he teaches ; for, whatever 
may be our effort, it is difficult not to apply the per- 
sonal test of any man's character to what he teaches. 
And marvellous it is, that, thrown open for inspec- 
tion, attack, and misrepresentation as every hour 
and every act of his life has been, including even 
his dreams, so little of harm has been found. Lie 
after lie comes up, is exposed, then is silent for a 
while, then comes up again. In the last book writ- 
ten against him the old story reappears, that on the 
passage from Stockholm to London, the Swedish 
seer would have plates laid for Peter and Paul, and 
then paid for three passages ! And it is asserted 
that this story must be true, for it rests on the 
authority of Southey. The fact being that Southey 
tells it as a jest, confessedly of his own making — 
that is, something Swedenborg might have done if 
he believed what he said — in " Espriella's Letters," 
a book now but little read. 



THE DOCTRIXE OF DEGREES 203 



XXXIX. 

YOU tell me you find much difficulty in Sweden- 
borg's doctrine of degrees ; and you ask me 
to write to you about it. To treat of so great a 
subject in a brief and imperfect way, seems worse 
than nothing, and I shrink from attempting anything 
more, fearing that these feeble efforts to throw light 
serve only to make the darkness visible. Yet even 
that is something ; to walk in darkness and know it 
not, is saddest of all. This truth of which I would 
speak now, is certainly one of the greatest of the 
New Church ; too great for us to think of grasping 
it in its fulness, and yet so simple that we can hardly 
fail to understand it in some measure. And the 
effort to appreciate it better, will do much for the 
invigofation both of intellect and character. 

In this, as in so many other instances, a truth of 
vast magnitude and influence, which when at first 
presented to human thought repels by its difficulty, 
when we are habituated to it, and it enters into the 
common notions of all educated people, will become 
a simple, easy element of common knowledge. 



204 



THE THEORY OF GRAVITATION 



For instance, astronomy, and indeed all physics, 
waited from the beginning of science for the theory 
of gravitation, and for want of it was wrong almost 
everywhere. Newton discovered this theory. Gen- 
erations passed before it was universally received. 
Strong thinkers at first declared it demanded con- 
ceptions which the human mind was incapable of ; 
and if it was true it could not be proved, nor under- 
stood, nor made use of. A century or two has 
elapsed, and the terror of one age has become to 
the next not merely a household word, but more, a 
familiar habit of thought. It is stated in all our 
books, taught in all our schools ; and what bright 
child would now find any difficulty in understanding 
that all matter draws all matter, and all things as 
they are heavier, that is have more matter, have 
more attraction, and attract the more strongly the 
nearer they are. And yet this is the great theory 
of gravitation, the discovery of which by Newton 
changed all the laws of physical science. 

It is so as to this doctrine of degrees ; and I am 
quite hopeful that you will understand me when, 
confining myself to a general view of the subject, I 
try to make it plain. 

Now, what are degrees in altitude, and what de- 
grees in latitude ? In the first place, these words 
which we find in the common translations of Swe- 
denborg are mistakes. He uses altitude? and lat- 



THREE KINDS OF HONESTY 205 

« 
itudo, but he uses them as meaning simply " height" 
and "breadth," and they should be translated by 
these English words which represent them perfectly. 
But how do degrees of height differ from degrees of 
breadth ? 

In all languages, words which have any spiritual, 
moral, or mental meaning, have first a physical 
meaning, the spiritual signification coming after- 
wards. " Right " originally meant only a straight 
line, and "rule" meant a straight stick to verify a 
straight line. Such instances are innumerable. The 
moral or spiritual meaning coming by figure of 
speech or symbolism, as is commonly said — by cor- 
respondence, as it would be better to say. 

Now let us take "height " in this higher or second- 
ary sense. Here is an honest man, one who has 
never stolen a dollar from a human being ; in the sight 
of all men an honest man, for he has obeyed to the 
minutest particular the law which forbids theft, but 
only from a principle of obedience — nothing else 
than the expediency or necessity of obedience being 
in his mind. Another man is also honest ; but he 
obeys the same law from a clear perception and rec- 
ognition of the truth, and from a desire to do what 
the truth tells him is right. 

It is quite plain that the motive of this last man 
is higher than the motive of the first ; everybody 
understands me when I say so. 



206 DISCRETE DEGREES OF MOTIVE 

But still another man may think less of obedience, 
less of the compulsion of right, but he may love 
his neighbor as himself, and therefore it would be 
impossible for him to steal. This would be a still 
higher motive. And these three motives are not 
merely in a series as to their height, but they do 
not run into each other, that is, they are distinct 
from each other. 

The first man may abstain more or less perfectly 
from theft, his obedience being more or less per- 
fect ; but however this may be, as long as obedience 
is the only motive, the man remains in point of 
character on the same plane or level. 

He rises above this when he ascends to the prin- 
ciple of honesty, or the motive of right. The man 
who obeys, only from the fear of disgrace or impris- 
onment or hell, may obey perfectly. The man who 
avoids theft from a principle of honesty may avoid 
it less perfectly. Nevertheless he acts from a higher 
motive than the other, although the motive has less 
power over him. And then he who acts honestly 
simply because he loves his neighbor as himself, 
has risen to a new motive, and stands on a higher 
plane. 

These three degrees of motive are then discrete 
degrees, for this word means only separated, cut 
apart. The degrees which stand on the same level, 
are continuous degrees ; for these are the differ- 



AFFECTION, THOUGHT, ACT 207 

ences of more or less in each degree, and these are 
degrees of breadth. One of the degrees of breadth 
runs into or grows by mere increase into the ' other. 
But the degrees of height are separated. We go 
from one to the other not by continuity, but by a 
change which is an elevation. The last change, to 
the highest degree, is when we go up from the obli- 
gation of honesty to the freedom and joy of love. 

If you have followed me thus far, you will know 
as much of the doctrine of degrees as the general 
principles above stated about gravitation give of that 
theory. But when those general principles were es- 
tablished, astronomy became busy, and has been 
ever since, and will for ever be so, in bringing them 
down into all their details, and understanding them 
there. Just so will it be the work of religious phi- 
losophy in all time, to apply, to comprehend, and to 
use the doctrine of degrees. 

Shall I weary you, if I go on to hint at some of 
the special applications of this doctrine ? One is 
this. We saw in the instance given that the highest 
of the three degrees referred to affection, the mid- 
dle to thought, the lowest to act. Now this is a 
universal law. Do what you please you could not 
do it if first you had not some desire or purpose to 
do it ; nor even then, let this desire grow never so 
strong, if it did not excite the thought how to do it. 
And then, in performing the act, thought and desire 



2o8 ACTS VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY 

are combined. This is equally true in an action of 
the most violent kind requiring enormous effort, and 
in every step you take unconsciously in walking, 
which you could not take if there were not a pur- 
pose of the will to take it, and an unconscious 
thought how to take it, and the will and the thought 
produce the step and are in it. If this happens to 
be new to you, it may at first seem preposterous, but 
a very little reflection will, I think, show you its 
truth. 

You must remember, however, that I am writing 
only of the normal and voluntary acts of the man, 
and not at all of the internal and involuntary acts 
within his body — as the action of the viscera, of 
which we are unconscious ; of the heart, which we 
cannot control by our will ; and of breathing, which 
we can, when we reflect upon it, partially control. 
So in disease, there may be distortions and spasms 
over which neither thought nor will have any power. 
But I am treating only of what the man himself de- 
sires, thinks, and does. 

All the love or will conceivable is not thought, 
though it produces thought. Nor is the most in- 
tense thought act, though the will through the 
thought afterwards causes the act, and rests in it. 
For love or will, thought, and act, are separated by 
degrees of height, or discrete degrees. One can- 
not pass into the other by continuity, but may pro- 



THE BIBLE DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM 209 

duce or cause the other and be in it, as the soul is 
in the body. 

By far the most important applications of this 
doctrine, making truths of infinite moment intelli- 
gible and certain, are already given to the church, 
and could only be so given as to be apprehensible 
by giving with them this great key to the science of 
spiritual life. 

The first of these is the doctrine of Deity : Fa- 
ther, Son, and Holy Spirit. As in every step you 
take, in every slightest act, there is will and thought, 
and they are in act, so we have the same three de- 
grees in their all-embracing wholeness, in the doc- 
trine of the Lord : " No man can come to me unless 
the Father draw him." None can truly come to the 
word, the truth, the wisdom, unless the good within 
and the love for that good, draw him to that truth, 
that wisdom. But if he is so drawn to that truth, 
he will learn the truth ; and his love of good will 
through that truth lead to and produce goodness in 
life ; and here this last degree is the active work or 
operation of the Spirit. 

The other doctrine which cannot be at all under- 
stood but as we know about degrees, is that which 
tells us that Divine love and wisdom produce the 
Bible that we read ; and, to use Swedenborg's phra- 
seology, are ultimated in it, and are in it in all their 
fulness. Infinite love causes and produces it through 



210 DIFFICULTIES TO BE WELCOMED 

infinite wisdom, and in the letter which is written 
both are embodied as in an infinite and eternal act ; 
for the Bible is for ever the Word, in the heavens as 
it is on earth. 

In hinting at these great truths, of course I 
scarcely expect that you will do more than catch a 
glimpse of their meaning. " Broken lights " they 
certainly are, but as on this April day the soft gray 
cloud is suddenly pierced with a ray of bright sun- 
shine, and then comes again gloom, and then the 
light breaks through in another spot, making even 
the gray cloud pearly and beautiful, and bringing joy 
to our hearts ; and though we see not the sun itself, 
these transient gleams give us the full assurance that 
beyond he is shining in unclouded splendor ; so we 
must here have faith in the perfection and entireness 
of truth, even though we see it but in fragments. 
We must expect difficulties, and be sure that we can 
advance only as one after another is conquered ; and 
if we meet with no difficulty it is because we make 
no progress. Every problem which presents itself 
to us should be regarded only as offering new fruits 
to be gathered, sooner or later. Then shall we not 
only expect difficulties, but welcome them. 



DEATH WITHOUT BITTERNESS OR STI/VG 21 1 



XL. 

THERE has been much sickness and death in 
our neighborhood lately, and I have been too 
busily employed to write much. In thinking over 
the sufferings of these poor wounded hearts, I long 
so earnestly for the time, which will come, though it 
may be very far distant, when death, or the passing 
into another world, may no longer be the grievous 
thing which it now is. Quite without sadness it 
will never be, perhaps, for we must bear the conse- 
quences which this gift of love brings with it. But 
the removal of beloved objects may become, I am 
sure, a sorrow so transfused with joy and hope that 
there shall be in it no bitterness or sting. 

Since I wrote this paragraph I have been to walk, 
and have seen such a beautiful dying scene that I 
cannot forbear speaking of it, for it was full of les- 
sons. It was the dying day. An event that hap- 
pens once in every twenty-four hours cannot, of 
course, always claim our attention ; and often the 
beautiful daylight slips away, and the night comes 
on, and we spend not a thought upon it. We have 



212 IN THE FATHER'S HOUSE 

no thought nor care that the sun should disappear 
and leave us in darkness, for do we not feel sure of 
his resurrection the next morning ? Why can we 
not feel just as sure of our own rising again into the 
morning of heaven ! Most of us say that we do ; 
but the assertion is seldom justified by our behavior. 
"The unknown country," " The bourne from which 
no traveller returns" — we are much more apt to 
think of heaven as truly described by either of these 
expressions than by the dear word " Home," the 
Father's home, to which He calls His children. 
And though such expressions as the above are, for 
the most part, true, they are not what a loving and 
believing Christian would dwell upon. Unknown in 
the sense of untried, yes ; but unknown in the sense 
of unheard of, oh, no ! Perhaps the city which has 
" no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine 
in it, for the glory of God shall lighten it, and the 
Lamb is the light thereof," is too far above the or- 
dinary soaring of our imagination to be readily con- 
ceived. But I think, in most cases, it is from want 
of use that the wings of thought droop so soon, and 
will carry us so little way upwards. But if the de- 
scription in the Apocalypse is sometimes too much 
for us, what endless comfort can we not always de- 
rive from those most unspeakably beautiful words of 
our Lord : " In my Father's house are many man- 
sions — I go that I may prepare a place for you." 



ABOVE THE DARK VALLEY 213 

In the sunset that I saw, there were no very gor- 
geous clouds, only a few delicate pencillings of crim- 
son and gold on the pale " daffodil sky." It was 
clear and peaceful, and there was nothing to distract 
one from the simple beauty of the gradual with- 
drawal of the light and the coming on of darkness. 
Walking towards the west as long as I could, I was 
a little startled, on turning round, to see how far the 
night had advanced, and how cold and gray the val- 
ley looked beneath me. The symbolism was very 
close between this picture and that cold, dark place 
which the world seems to us when some dear friend, 
who made our sunshine for us, has gone from our 
sight. But the sadness was for the briefest moment. 
The spirit of peace and hope which brooded over 
that lovely sky did not forsake me. The dark valley 
seemed filled with the Father's presence, and the 
" waiting for the morning " could then be only 
"blessed, and not grievous." 



2 14 THE FUTURE 



XLI. 

HOW impossible it is at times to suppress one's 
longing to look into the future, and know how 
circumstances of vital interest will turn out. Yes, 
how impossible to suppress this sickening desire, 
even when we know that it is best for us not to be 
certain of the future, or rather to be certain of only 
one thing about it, and that is, that perfect love and 
wisdom will order it for us. I suppose the difficulty 
is two-fold. One part of it, and a large part, comes 
from the feebleness of our faith in our Father. And 
then another large part comes from the fear that 
while all things will be ordered as is best for us, our 
infirmities and misdeeds have made us such that the 
best thing for us is not the good thing our Father 
would give us if He could, but only that which we 
have made it possible for Him to give, and this may 
be great pain and suffering. " Ye cannot serve God 
and mammon." If one insists that he will serve 
mammon only, how ill-grounded would be his trust 
in the divine goodness when he asks only that his 
service of mammon should be repaid with what he 






THE TRUST THAT BRINGS PEACE 215 

would call success. No, that is not the trust that 
cannot be disappointed. Two things go together : 
" Serve the Lord and trust in Him." Only as we 
serve Him, only as we resist our proclivities to sin, 
only as we repent earnestly and truly, only then can 
we have that trust which brings peace. We " can- 
not serve God and mammon ; " and by mammon is 
here meant not merely gross and external worldli- 
ness, but all looking to the external as the source 
and means of happiness, rather than to the internal. 
So far as we can resolutely give ourselves up to the 
work of cultivating within ourselves, with all the 
help He gives us, that condition of mind which 
seeks only that we may become His instruments, 
looking only to our duty, leaving to God our happi- 
ness — only so far can we be sure that He will give 
us whatsoever, through the long eternity which 
awaits us, will constitute those means which will 
best develop our minds and hearts, and give us, 
through all changing states, the constant joy of be- 
lieving that we are becoming more and more His 
children. 



Supplement to Catalogxte. 



NEW PUBLICATIONS NOT INCLUDED IN CATALOGUE. 



AutJior's Edition of 

GEORGE MEREDITH'S NOVELS. 

A new popular edition of George Meredith's Novels. Uniformly bound 
in Library Style, complete in 10 vols. i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50 per 
vol. (The crown 8vo edition, #2.00, can still be had.) 

THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD RHODA FLEMING. 

FEVEREL. BEAUCHAMP'S CAREER. 

EVAN HARRINGTON. THE EGOIST. 

HARRY RICHMOND. DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 

SANDRA BELLONI. THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT, 
VITTORIA. AND FARINA. 

A READING OF EARTH. 

Poems. By George Meredith, author of " Ballads and Poems of 
Tragic Life," " Richard Feverel," &c. i6mo. Cloth. Price, #1.50. 

THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP ; OR, WIT AND WISDOM OF GEORGE 
MEREDITH. 

With Selections from his Poetry, a Critical and Biographical Introduc- 
tion, and a Portrait. Square i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1. 00. 

BALZAC'S NOVELS IN ENGLISH. 

Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley. Already pub- 
lished : — 

DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR. 

PERE GORIOT. COUSIN PONS. 

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE TWO BROTHERS. 

CESAR BIROTTEAU. THE ALKAHEST. 

EUGENIE GRANDET. MODESTE MIGNON. 

THE MAGIC SKIN (LA PEAU LOUIS LAMBERT. 

DE CHAGRIN). SERAPHITA. 

COUSIN BETTE. SONS OF THE SOIL. 

BUREAUCRACY. FAME AND SORROW. 
THE LILY OF THE VALLEY. 

Handsome i2mo volumes. Uniform in size and style. Half Russia. 
Price, #1.50 each. 

I 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 

HARVARD VESPERS. 

Addresses to Harvard Students, by the Preachers to the University. 
18S6-1888. i6mo. Cloth, crimson and black. Price, $1.00. Contains 
addresses by Francis G. Peabody, Phillips Brooks, Edward Everett Hale, 
Alexander McKenzie, George A. Gordon, and Andrew P. Peabody. 

THE BOOK OF CHRISTMAS. 

Descriptive of the Customs, Ceremonies, Traditions, Superstitions, 
Fun, Feeling, and Festivities of the Christmas Season. By Thomas K. 
Hervey. With all the Original Illustrations by R. Seymour. i2mo. 
Cloth. Price, $2.00. 

11 More than fifty years ago ' The Book of Christmas,' by T. K. Hervey, was 
a popular and much valued manual upon the subject of which it treats. As years 
have passed, new generations have risen ; it has been neglected, disused, and 
forgotten, like many other good books. The re-publication of the work is a boon to 
the readers of the present day ; for it contains an exhaustive account of everything 
connected with the time-honored festival of Christmas, including the customs, 
ceremonies, traditions, superstitions, fun, feeling, and festivities of the season. 
The book is not only valuable for the facts it has culled from many sources and 
the information it presents, but also for its delightful style, its literary finish, and 
the admirable tone of the running commentary that harmonizes with the text. 
Readers who desire to know everything that can be known about Christmas will 
find information and entertainment combined in its happiest form, and will at the 
same time pay tribute to the writer for the surpassing quality of his work. The 
book has been reproduced with the original illustrations by R . Seymour, a noted 
artist of the day. They are powerful in expression, and overflowing with fun and 
jollity. The volume is excellently brought out by the publishers, with its clear 
letter-press, good quality of paper, and artistic binding." — Providence Journal. 

LIFE OF DR. ANANDABAI JOSHEE, 

The Kinswoman and Friend of Pundita Ramabai. By Mrs. Caroline 
H. Dall. 121110. Cloth. Price, $1.00. It contains many original let- 
ters, and is embellished by a full-length portrait of Dr. Joshee. 

** The book is one of the deepest interest ; and the frontispiece, giving a full- 
length portrait of Dr. Joshee in her Hindu costume, will be prized by all readers. 
To write such a biography required exceptional powers, and too much can hardly 
be said in praise of the admirable manner in which Mrs. Dall has accomplished 
the work." — Boston Evening Traveller. 

TWENTY LESSONS IN COOKERY. 

Compiled from the Boston School Kitchen Text-Book, by Mrs. D. A. 
Lincoln, author of " The Boston Cook Book." Cards in envelope. 
Price, 40 cents per set. 

"The receipts in these lessons are the same as those in the 'Text-Book,' and 
have been prepared in answer to a special demand for those who wish the sub- * 
stance of the book in a cheaper form, and to save the time formerly taken in 
copying receipts. 

" These cards furnish an attractive, convenient, and durable form of preserv- 
ing the lesson for each day. Each lesson is printed on a separate card, nine of 
the twenty being on double cards. One four-page card contains directions for all 
kinds of kitchen work, — the care of a fire, cleaning dishes, sweeping and 
dusting, and rules for the table. 

" The twenty cooking-lessons include plain directions for about one hundred 
and fifty dishes, illustrating all the fundamental principles of cookery, a knowl- 
edge of which will enable any school-girl to do all the cooking tor her own 
family." 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers Publications. 

LONDON OF TO-DAY, 1889. 

By Charles E. Pascoe. Numerous illustrations. Fourth year of 
publication. 121110. Cloth. Price, $1.50. 

MARTIN LUTHER, AND OTHER ESSAYS. 

By Frederic Henry Hedge, author of " The Primeval World," 
"Reason in Religion," " Atheism in Philosophy," etc. i2mo. Cloth 
Price, #2.00. 

THE UNITED STATES OF YESTERDAY AND OF TO-MORROW. 

By William Barrows, D.D., author of "Oregon; the Struggle for 
Possession," "The Indian Side of the Indian Question," etc. 1 vol. 
i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.25. 

"This book has been written to answer questions. As the author in earlier 
days had spent several years beyond the Mississippi, and much time and travel 
there since in official work, during which he made ten tours over the border, and 
in the East had devoted much labor to public addresses and lectures on our new 
country, it was quite natural that a miscellaneous information should be solicited 
from him concerning the territory between the Alleghanies and the Pacific. 

" For various reasons it has seemed best to let this information group itself 
into topics, and so it stands classified under headings and in chapters." — From 
the Introduction. 

HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL, 

Till the Time of King David. By Ernest Ren an, author of " Life 
of Jesus." Demy 8vo. Cloth. Price, $2.50. 

"To all who know anything of M. Renan's ' Life of Jesus' it will be no 
surprise that the same writer has told the ' History of the People of Israel till the 
Time of King David ' as it was never told before nor is ever like to be told again. 
For but once in centuries does a Renan arise, and to any other hand this work 
were impossible. Throughout it is the perfection of paradox ; for, dealing wholly 
with what we are all taught to lisp at the mother's knee it is more original than 
the wildest romance ; more heterodox than heterodoxy, it is yet full of large and 
tender reverence for that supreme religion that brightens all time as it transcends 
all creeds." — The Commercial Advertiser. 

HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 

Second Division. From the Reign of David up to the Capture of 
Samaria. By Ernest Renan. Demy 8vo. Cloth. Price, $2.50. 

Uniform with the " History of the People of Israel till the Time of King 
David.'' _ 

" This period the author deems the most important part of the history of 
Judaism. Taking up the thread of his previous volume with the establishment of 
a strong monarchial power by David, he continues it to the destruction of the 
northern kingdom by the Assyrians. His treatment of his subject, it need not 
be said, is intensely brilliant, his style strangely fascinating, and the volume is 
throughout pervaded with the author's strong personality. . . . This present 
volume is in keeping with the first. It is filled with fruitful suggestions, with 
audacious conjectures, with brilliant comparisons, and ingenious observations. 
The third and last volume of this great work, which the author regards the 
crowning one of his long literary life, will be eagerly awaited." — Boston 
Traveller-. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 

MRS. TILESTON'S SELECTIONS. 

New editions of Mrs. Tileston's Selections from Thomas a Kempis, 
Fenelon, and Dr. John Tauler, each with an appropriate frontispiece 
and bound in a new style, — white, yellow, and gold. Price, 50 cents 
each. 

" Roberts Brothers have issued charming, dainty Easter editions of three of 
their ; Wisdom Series.' Selections from Tauler, Fenelon, and Thomas a Kempis 
lie before us, arrayed in white, as pure as the white of tbe Easter lilies. In this 
busy, mundane life of ours we need to meditate more, as did these mystics of old, 
on the things of the spirit ; and who can guide these meditations of ours more 
beautifully than Tauler and Fenelon ?" — Boston Transcript. 

HANNAH MORE. 

By Charlotte M. Yonge, author of " Heir of Redclyffe," etc. 
Famous Women Series, uniform with " George Eliot," " Margaret Fuller," 
'* Mary Lamb," etc. i6mo. Cloth. Price, #1. 00. 

" Perhaps a better selection of biographer for Hannah More could not have 
been imagined than Charlotte M. Yonge, who has Just added her life to the 
Famdus Women Series. Certainly the book is one of the most thoroughly enter- 
taining of the series. It is written in an easy and flowing style, and is full of 
telling points. The volume is full, too, of personal anecdote and of clever 
discrimination of character.' ' — The Beacon. 

ADELAIDE RISTORI. 

Studies and Memoirs. An Autobiography. (Famous Women Series.) 
i6mo. Cloth. Price, #1.00. 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

By John H. Ingram. (Famous Women Series.) i6mo. Cloth. 
Price, $t.oo. 

JANE AUSTEN. 

By Mrs. Malden. (Famous Women Series.) i6mo. Cloth. Price, 

#1.50. 

"Mrs. Charles Maiden has written a pleasant little book,— all sensible books 
about Miss Austen are pleasant, and can hardly help being so; and this book is 
certainly not only sensible, but in parts acute." — Spectator. 

SAINT THERESA OF AVILA. 

By Mrs. Bradley Gilman. (Famous Women Series.) i6mo. Cloth. 
Price, #1.00. 

The story of Theresa is founded upon historic facts, and is told nearly as 
possible in her own words. 

To the student of Christian history or of Spanish literature, Saint Theresa 
has an honored place; but to the general reader she is no more real than the 
enchanted princess of the fairy-tale, or the Lorelei of the Rhine. To make her 
a living, breathing human being, with feelings and foibles like our own, has been 
the most delicate part of the writer's task. 

THE NEW PRIEST IN CONCEPTION BAY. 

A Novel. By Robert Lowell. A new revised edition. 1 vol. 
i2mo. Cloth. Price, £1.50. 

4 





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